


my heart wants the ugliest things

by acertainlady



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: AgentCorp, Angst, Asexual Character, F/F, Kara is ace so she and Lena decide to have an open romantic friendship, Slow Burn, So yeah, also Sam's still Reign, and then whoops Alex and Lena fall in love with each other, bear with me, but in this AU everyone actually communicates so it works out, everyone is very supportive and lovely and there's lots of honest communication
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 05:09:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 77,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26347639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acertainlady/pseuds/acertainlady
Summary: When Kara comes out as asexual, she and Lena break up and instead agree to an open romantic friendship. But first, Lena needs some time and space from Kara in order to get over her sexual attraction.So Kara sends Alex (who just so happens to have broken up with Maggie just twelve days prior) to Lena's apartment to support her through the breakup.Turns out those two get along better than anyone would have expected.Takes place against the backdrop of season three, but I fixed it, so it's s3 where everyone talks and works together and there aren't secrets and also there's as little Mon-El as possible.
Relationships: Alex Danvers & Kara Danvers, Alex Danvers/Lena Luthor, Kara Danvers & Lena Luthor
Comments: 139
Kudos: 457





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> So, I've written this as an optional sequel to my recent work, found here https://archiveofourown.org/works/26297326, but it's not super necessary you read that first, I guess. 
> 
> And, very very important PSA: this is not by any means a representation of all asexual people. Asexuality is a spectrum, and every asexual (and graysexual) is their own person. No community or identity is monolithic, and my depiction of asexuality as written here is merely that: one, specific depiction in a fictional work. I did my best, but it is not enough, especially since I myself am not asexual and merely working off the aces I know and the research I've done. I encourage you to do your research and, as always, ask people questions and follow their lead. People are different! Life is a rich tapestry. 
> 
> (On that note, please feel free to call me out if I did something wrong, however, as I am always down to learn.)

About two weeks after Lena and Kara (finally) get together, Alex breaks up with Maggie.

It’s…bad. It’s bad. Unprecedented, really, but luckily for her, she has Kara on her side, Kara to drag her out of the bar and bring her to Midvale for a weekend retreat.

“Shouldn’t you be with Lena?” Alex grumbles as she watches Kara superspeed around her apartment—the one Maggie had walked out of earlier that day—and pack a bag for her. “Being all cute and happy and honeymoon-y, unable to keep your hands off each other?”

“Lena understands,” Kara is quick to say. “She knows you always come first.”

“I don’t wanna keep you away from your girlfriend because of my own shit.”

Kara noticeably hesitates, but Alex, in her self-hating melancholy, assumes she’s biting her tongue to protect Alex’s feelings.

“So, you never really told me. I mean, I know you said you got together, but how’s it been since that first night?”

“You don’t wanna hear about that,” the alien chuckles awkwardly.

“No, honestly, I’d appreciate the distraction. It’s like you said after Mon-El left—I’d feel better, knowing you’re happy.”

She bites her lip. “It’s…it’s a lot.”

Auburn eyebrows furrow. “What is?”

Just then, a call comes through Kara’s phone, and she shoots an apologetic look toward her sister before answering it, though her body is ringing with relief.

“J’onn! Hi!” she greets a little too enthusiastically. “Yes! Oh, thank you, we’re so…yeah, of course…of course…only the weekend, I promise. Yeah…Okay, cool. Thank you!” Hanging up and turning to her sister, she grins, “J’onn is letting us use his car. Er, spaceship. Whatever. Anyway, we better get a move on.”

\----

It isn’t until the weekend is over, on the ride back to National City that Kara takes the leap and opens up to Alex. She starts slow, unsure given the tenuous mental state her sister’s been in.

“Can I talk to you about Lena?”

“Of course,” Alex asserts. “Always. I know I’m going through a tough time, but—I _always_ want to be here for you, Kara, no matter what. Don’t ever hold back for my sake, okay?”

“I know, it’s just—” She cuts herself off with a sigh. “This is a lot.”

“What’s wrong?” the older Danvers asks, sensing her sister’s distress.

“I really like Lena. I really, really like her. And I like being with her, and even though it’s not that much different than how it was before, when we were friends, it is different. I like that I get to tell her how much I love her and hold her hand and call her my girlfriend and stuff like that. But…there’s other stuff. Stuff that I don’t like.”

“What sorta stuff?”

Biting her lip, Kara lowers her voice to a stage whisper. “ _Sex_.”

Alex winces a bit, so Kara follows up.

“You’re sure you’re okay?”

“Yes,” the redhead declares, clearing her throat to reestablish her aplomb. “This isn’t the talk I was expecting to have, but like I said, I’m here for you. So…right. When you say you don’t like it, what do you mean by that?”

“I don’t—I like that she likes it, but other than that, I’m mostly waiting for it to be over so that I can cuddle with her. It just feels…unnecessary. Boring, even. It’s not the thing I want from her. I like that I’m making her feel good, but I…it doesn’t make me feel good. I like the parts before, and the parts after, where we’re just affectionate and comfortable and soft and warm together, but I sort of… _dread_ the actual sex.”

“Okay…” Alex responds cautiously.

“I don’t know. I’m probably not making sense, I just—”

“No, no, Kara, I get what you’re saying. Honestly…that’s kinda how I felt when I slept with men. Before, you know.” She takes a deep breath. “There’s a rest stop in about five miles. How bout we pull over, eat the amazing food Mom packed for us, and have a real talk. One where I don’t have to be distracted with driving and keeping J’onn’s car intact.”

Kara sighs with relief. “Okay. Good. Thank you.”

Once settled at a secluded picnic table with sandwiches and palpable tension, Alex clears her throat. “So…do you think you’re straight, or…?”

“No,” Kara gulps the word along with a bite of bread. “More like…I don’t think I’m attracted to anyone. Not in that way, at least.”

Pause. “Ah.”

“I thought with Mon-El, it was just because I was nervous, and inexperienced, and whatever other excuses I gave. Honestly, I never even really wanted to… _do that_ with him. I mean, I wanted to try it, because I knew I was supposed to, and because he obviously wanted to, and—”

She could see her sister’s fist clench.

“Kara, did he—?”

“No, Alex,” the blonde sighs, reaching across the table to place a reassuring hand on Alex’s tense forearm. “I promise, nobody has ever forced me to do anything. That’s not what I’m telling you, okay? I consented and agreed to everything, even if I didn’t necessarily _want_ it, because in a way I did want it. I wanted to see if—I can’t explain it, but I did want it, in a way. I thought I was… _broken_. Everybody is supposed to want to have sex, right? But I…I thought I was just confused, or I don’t know what. It didn’t ever occur to me to…you know, but I figured if I tried it, I’d be fixed. I’d start to want it like other people do. But then I was with Mon-El, and I didn’t feel any better. It still felt…off. So I thought, maybe he just wasn’t right. Maybe he wasn’t the right one, you know? But then Lena comes along and— _God_ , Alex, Lena is everything. I’ve never felt more for anyone in my entire life. She is… _everything_. She is the most beautiful, amazing, breathtaking person I’ve ever—and I look at her, right? I look at her, and I imagine us together. But I never imagine us together like _that_. I imagine us tangled together in a big comfy bed, wrapped up in blankets together, just feeling how soft the other is, falling asleep with our noses buried in each other’s hair. I imagine comforting her when she’s sad, and celebrating her when she’s happy. I want to go on dates with her. I want to hold her hand and support her and be there for her. I want to get her flowers and make her laugh and do whatever it takes to make her feel like the most special person in the universe. Except I don’t…I don’t want to do _…that_ part.”

Alex nods, wearing her scientist face as she processes what she’s just been told, while also trying to distance herself from the fact that she is (once again) talking about her baby sister’s sex life. “So…you love her, but you don’t want to have sex with her?”

“Not really, no.”

“And when you have had sex with her, you haven’t enjoyed it? Not at all, not any aspect of it?”

Kara shrugs tentatively. “I like that she likes it. I like that I can communicate my feelings in a way that she understands, but…no. No, I’d rather not have to do any of that. I wish I wanted to, and I know there’s probably something wrong with me that—”

“Stop that. There is nothing wrong with you.”

Burying her face in her hands, Kara chokes out, “I know. But I wish…I wish there were. Because if there were something wrong with me, I could fix it. But this, this is…”

Alex smiles sadly, running her fingers through blonde hair. “This is good. I promise you, it’s good, even if it feels like a nightmare now. Self-discovery is always good, in the long run, especially when it sucks at first. And hey, I’m proud of you, okay? For acknowledging it, for talking to me about it, for being brave enough to do that even when you don’t have everything totally figured out yet. I’m so proud of you, and I’m here for you, no matter what. I love you and I support you…and did I mention I’m proud of you?”

The Kryptonian chuckles weakly, pulling one hand away from her face. “I just liked it better before. I mean, not the whole secretly-in-love-with-each-other part, but I liked the lingering hugs and the sleepovers and the forehead kisses and laying my head on her chest without it leading to anything… _else_. And now I’m afraid it’s too late to go back.”

“You won’t know unless you talk to her, sis,” she offers with a sympathetic look. “But before you do that, I think you should think over some things. Figure out more solidly what you want and how you feel. And I can help you with that, if you want me to, however you want me to.”

Kara nods, fidgeting with her glasses, blushing as her eyes flit around toward anything other than her sister’s face. “I…I Googled a few things. Well, a lot of things.”

“Like what?”

“A _lot_ of things.”

“Okay. Maybe just tell me what you started off with?”

Her blush grows even deeper. “Two weeks ago, after the first time Lena and I—you know. After that, I Googled ‘why don’t I like having sex with the most incredible woman in the universe?’ and…it just sort of spiraled from there.”

Trying desperately to suppress her smirk, the older Danvers clears her throat. “Okay. And what did those searches result in?”

Her sister responds by shoving enough sandwich into her own mouth that it is nearly impossible for her to form words around the mass of bread and filling.

“We don’t have to talk about this now, you know,” Alex coos sympathetically. “I understand if you wanna tap out. I know it can be a lot to handle all at once, and you’ve already been way stronger than I was during my first attempt at coming out to you. So if you’d rather, we can get in the car, keep driving, listen to infuriating pop music, and table this conversation until we’re back in National City and you feel safe and ready. Is that what you want?”

“When did you get so mature about this stuff?” Kara can’t help but blurt, still working on masticating sandwich as she does so.

The redhead shrugs. “I went through a similar experience of questioning my identity—and also everything I’ve ever done or felt—not too long ago, if you recall. And you were…God, Kara, you were so good to me. You deserve the world; you deserve love and support and understanding and patience, and I’m just trying to give you that.”

Kara’s eyes glisten with unshed tears. “You’re my favorite person.”

Running a pale thumb over an indestructible cheekbone, Alex smirks, “Ditto.”

They clean up and head back to the car. Once nestled in their seats, Kara’s small, scared voice stops Alex from turning on the ignition.

“I don’t want to hurt Lena. I-I’m afraid she’ll hate me.”

And in an instant, Alex is sliding across the front seat, wrapping her Kryptonian in a hug worthy of her own superstrength.

“Hey, listen to me. You’ve done nothing wrong, Kara. _Nothing_. Lena will understand. It might take her a while, but she will eventually understand, and she could never _hate_ you. She _loves_ you, and she just wants you to be happy, just like you love her and want her to be happy.”

“I can’t lose her, Alex. Especially not like this.”

Increasing her already impossibly tight grip, the hardcore agent shushes her little sister as she gently descends into tears, stroking her hair, taking care of her, consoling her, whispering tender comforts into her temple.

“I got you. I got you. It’s gonna be okay. I’m here. I promise. I’m so proud of you.”

And even though Alex is pretty sure (almost absolutely sure, kind of) that Kara won’t lose Lena because of this (whatever this is, she doesn’t presume to label or identify it yet, she follows Kara’s lead entirely), she deliberately avoids promising anything. She deliberately avoids anything that could be even vaguely interpreted as a promise that Lena will understand, that Lena will support her, that she won’t lose Lena.

Because Alex can’t speak for Lena, and even though she trusts the young billionaire to accept and love Kara no matter what, she expects it will add some roadblocks to their relationship, and the last thing Kara needs right now is to hear overly-optimistic guarantees from her sister, uttered just to placate her.

She needs support. Love. Truth.

But not _too_ much truth.

So Alex, wisely, sticks to what she knows for certain.

“You’re gonna be okay.”

Because one way or another, she will be.

“I’m here for you. I got you.”

Because if the only thing standing in the way of Kara being marginally happy was Alex cutting her own arm off, Alex wouldn’t even think twice before grabbing the nearest sharp object and getting to work.

“I love you, no matter what.”

Because, well, that has been the only constant in both their lives since the day Clark dropped Kara off in Midvale. Because even when they hate each other, they love each other—because they’re _sisters_ , and that’s what sisters do.

And most of all: “I’m so proud of you. You’re so brave.”

Because, well, fuck. A year ago, when Alex came out to Kara, it was those words that truly made the difference. When her little sister pulled her into a crushing hug and promised _I’m proud of you_ , then fuck, Alex had to face her new reality. Furthermore, it was those words that made her realize she _could_ face her new reality, because her sister was _proud_ of her.

So Alex holds her close, trying to return the favor, hoping it has the same effect on Kara that it did on her.

When Kara finally starts to calm down, she pulls slightly away from her big sister—not enough to fully break the embrace, just enough to wipe the tears from her eyes.

“Thanks,” she says meekly, sniffing.

“Thank _you_ ,” Alex counters. “Thank you for trusting me, and talking to me, and letting me help you. You know I live to help you.”

That elicits a watery giggle from the blonde, and she nods firmly, a fond, affectionate smile invading her countenance as she declares, “All right, let’s get home and find something to punch.”

“Nothing cures a Danvers quite like some good ole fashioned punching.”

“And Britney!” Kara shrieks, her hand darting to the radio as Alex dons her sunglasses with a groan.

“Fine. You’re lucky I love you.”

“Yeah,” the alien grins dopily. “I really, really am.”

\----

It’s two days later—two days full of long, emotional conversations between the Danvers sisters, accompanied by lots of donuts—until Kara feels ready to talk to Lena about it.

Then Mon-El shows up.

So obviously, things get…complicated.

Especially because the day after, they learn it isn’t just Mon-El who’s shown up.

It’s also his wife.

And their spaceship from the future.

And it’s all very… _something_.

“How are you feeling?” Alex asks Kara the absolute very first millisecond they have alone together after they are introduced to Imra, the Saturnian beauty to whom Mon-El is married in the thirty-first century—and, also, now? Maybe? Technically?

(Who knows, really, because time travel is weird, but also they certainly think and act like they’re married, so even though Imra hasn’t technically been born yet and Mon-El should be rendered to dust via lead poisoning, sure, yeah, they’re married. Why not. They’ve also been in hypersleep for twelve thousand years, come bearing futuristic technology, and are familiar with Bon Jovi but not phones. Literally nothing about this situation could possibly make sense at this point.)

“Honestly?” Kara scoffs, rubbing her forehead with the pads of her fingers. “ _Relieved._ ”

Alex raises a questioning eyebrow.

“He’s _alive_ , Alex. He’s okay. I didn’t—I didn’t kill him. I saved him.”

“Yeah,” the agent smiles. “You did.”

“And he’s…he’s happy. He’s happy without me, he hasn’t been… _pining_ for me, or waiting for me. He’s alive, and I saved him, and he—he’s better. He’s helping people.”

“You didn’t just save his life, Kara. You changed it. He’s a better person because of you.”

But the superhero, clearly, is having difficulty focusing on anything other than: “He’s _alive_.”

At that, the sisters wrap each other up in a loving embrace, until Kara jerks to attention, hearing a distant buzz combined with an even-more-distant change in heart rate.

“Lena’s texting me,” she breathes, panic inundating her voice. “Oh, Rao. Lena’s texting me. She—what do I tell her? Mon-El, and…and the other stuff, I don’t—”

“Hey, hey,” Alex coos, running a soothing hand over blonde hair. “We talked about this, right? You’re ready to tell her. And Mon-El being back? That’s secondary information.”

“But what if she thinks—?”

“Are you about to get back together with Mon-El?”

Kara grimaces, a shudder running through her. “ _No._ ”

“Then she won’t think. He has nothing to do with this. His being back is inconvenient timing, yeah, but it is completely separate from everything else you have to talk to her about.”

“So…which part should I tell her first?”

“Oh, definitely back burner the Mon-El story. Wait until you need to pause the first conversation, and then introduce the time-travelling ex-boyfriend. That’ll surely distract and change the topic.”

Biting her lip, the blonde confesses, “I’m scared.”

“Duh. Who wouldn’t be?”

With that, Kara reluctantly goes to check her phone, her lip quivering against her will upon seeing the kind, loving text that Lena has sent her, just to “check in,” because they haven’t talked yet that day, and they didn’t see each other the night before.

Because _Mon-El is back, and also his wife, for some reason._

So with pleading eyes, Kara looks to her older sister, silently conveying the wish she can’t seem to get the strength to vocalize.

“We won’t call unless absolutely necessary. I promise.”

Kara takes a deep breath before texting back, asking when Lena will be off work so they can have dinner together, trying not to allude to the fact that this would be a dinner plus a _conversation_ , but also omitting the usual emojis and exclamation marks, so her ‘ _Dinner tonight?’_ text probably read the same way a typical person’s _‘We need to talk_ ’ text would read.

If it didn’t, well, then when Lena responds with _‘Pizza, potstickers, or both?’_ and Kara replies, _‘Whatever you want,’_ then that probably tells Lena all she needs to know.

To Lena’s credit, she orders both. She also gets her favorite entrées from the both places—her guilty pleasures, her comfort foods—as if preparing for the worst.

And even though she spent hours planning this conversation with Alex, Kara still feels so nervous she can barely decide whether she can’t stomach food or if she should be shoveling it into her mouth to prevent her from saying the wrong thing.

They make semi-awkward small talk as they settle in at the table with food and glasses of wine, just talking about their days, mixed in with Kara apologizing profusely for her recent bouts of radio silence.

“It’s okay,” Lena smiles kindly at her, interrupting what was destined to be another long, stumbling diatribe of apology, furrowing her brows a bit at the pattern she sees developing. “I get it. Alex is going through things, you’re obviously quite busy with work. At both your jobs, I’m sure.”

“Yeah,” the blonde clears her throat. “That’s…part of it.”

The brilliant billionaire nods knowingly. “But there’s something else?” When she’s answered with only a timid blush, she reaches across the table to place her hand atop Kara’s. “Please, Kara, by now you should know better than to think you can hide something from me. I’ve known for a few days now that something has been on your mind. Something has felt… _off_ with you, with us, and—well, I understand if you still have reservations about trusting me—”

“That’s not it,” Kara is quick to correct.

Lena tilts her head. “Well, then, can we talk about whatever’s on your mind?”

She notices her girlfriend’s hesitation.

“When I say you can tell me anything, darling, I mean _anything_. I want to know everything about you, everything you’re feeling.”

“You too,” the journalist mutters back, averting her eyes still, tracing invisible patterns on the table with her fingertip.

“Good,” Lena smiles warmly. “So I’ll tell you how I’m feeling, and then maybe you can tell me what you’re feeling?”

Kara nods.

“I’m…worried. I’m worried that I made a mistake, that I pushed you into a relationship with me you don’t want. Or that maybe I’m doing something wrong. I’m worried that…I’m not enough for you, or that you don’t find me attractive.”

“I find you unbelievably attractive, Lena,” Kara promises, finally looking up into green eyes, her own swimming with sadness and frustration and something else Lena can’t quite identify. Shame, maybe? Before she can figure it out, those bright blue orbs are pointed down at the table again. “Just not…sexually.”

With a sharp intake of breath, Lena primly fixes her posture, pulling her hand away in the process. “Oh.”

“I wish I did. God, I wish I did, but I—I never have. With anyone. I just…” She clenches her fists, willing herself to keep going, to remember the scripts she’d worked out with Alex, to force the words out lest she never again finds this courage. “I think I just don’t think about people that way.”

Lena tilts her head, which is reeling with the information she’s received, nearly overflowing with the infinite questions popping up rapidly.

And Kara answers some of them, as she repeats to the best of her ability the speech that she gave Alex just days before at a rest stop picnic table—leaving out some parts (like the specifics of how she finds sex boring and impatiently waits for it to be over) and emphasizing even more how amazing Lena is, how much she loves her and wants her and wanted what happened between them.

Lena stays silent during the onslaught of information, so Kara keeps rambling, telling Lena about her conversations with Alex, about how new and scary everything feels, but how things finally make sense to her, everything finally makes sense, her _life_ and _feelings_ finally make sense, and so even though it’s scary, she’s actually kinda relieved.

It takes a while until she stops talking, and she does so rather abruptly, opting to bite her lip instead. She looks at her girlfriend imploringly, and asks, “Please tell me what you’re thinking.”

It takes a few beats.

“You don’t like having sex with me?” Lena echoes, her voice steady, firm, giving nothing away. “At all?”

Kara’s eyes fill with apology, combined with that other emotion Lena saw before but still can’t pinpoint. “I like that you like it. I like that it makes you feel good, that I’m able to express my feelings in a way you understand but…”

She trails off, noticing how her girlfriend has recoiled, hunched in on herself, clearly overwhelmed with reactions.

“I’m sorry, Lena.”

“You don’t have to be sorry. You have nothing to be sorry about,” Lena says sincerely, and the blonde almost believes her. “You’ve done nothing wrong. It’s who you are, and it’s valid, and I'm so, so thankful you’re telling me. It’s just—I need to process.”

“I’m so sorry, I never meant to hurt you,” Kara laments.

“Oh, Kara. You could never, ever hurt me by being who you are.”

Tears brim the alien’s eyes, and she takes in a shaky breath. “I—it feels weird. I still don’t—I did some research, and I found others. People. People who are like me. Who are…”

She looks away, lets her sentence trail off, and Lena reaches out, gently resting her hand on top of her girlfriend’s. “You don’t have to say it. If you’re not ready, if you need more time. You don’t have to say it, now or ever.” She squeezes the strong hand. “But it might make you feel better. It might help, to see how it feels, how it sounds, coming out of your mouth. Either way, I’m here for you. Now, and forever. I will be here to listen.”

Kara nods, biting her lip. “As my girlfriend? Or…as a friend?”

It’s Lena’s turn to look away now, and she closes her eyes. “We need to have more than one conversation about this. I want to learn more about how you feel, how you identify, what you’re comfortable with and what you’re not. But you should know…sex is extremely important to me. And frankly, I’m not so keen about the fact that you were doing things you didn’t want to do solely because _I_ wanted to, because you were trying to make _me_ happy. I know it was a necessary part of your journey, but…going forward, I’d hate to think I was forcing you to—”

“You’ve never forced me,” Kara asserts, adamant, staring Lena down with a steely expression. “You _could_ never force me. I like making you happy, and…relationships are about compromises, aren’t they? If you want salad for dinner and I want pizza, we compromise. If you want to stay in and watch a movie and I want to go out, we compromise. How is this different?”

Lena gazes at her, sadly, but lovingly. “Darling, it’s entirely different for me. For me, sex is incredibly meaningful. It’s the way I seek assurance, comfort, connection from my partner. Sex is an important part of my relationships, and personally, I need a partner with whom I’m sexually compatible.”

Kara looks shattered, and she tries to slip her hand out from under Lena’s, but the intrepid businesswoman will not let that happen.

“Hey,” she continues affectionately. “We will find a solution. We will figure this out. I promise you. Like I said…I’m not going anywhere. We just have to keep talking, working this out. Okay? I want to be here for you, if you’ll let me.”

“Of course I’ll let you,” the Kryptonian mutters. “I’m just…I’m so scared, Lena.”

“You’re being so brave, Kara. This is difficult, I’m sure, but you’re not alone, and you’re the bravest, strongest person I know. I’m so proud of you.”

Tears start to slip down past lead-lined glasses.

“You said cuddling is okay, right? You like cuddling?”

“Yeah. I do.”

“So would you maybe wanna get in bed with me, and let me hold you, and we can talk more, or talk about something else, or not talk at all?”

Within minutes, they’re snuggled deep under the covers, Kara’s face cradled in Lena’s chest, Lena’s hands carding through Kara’s hair, and they’re talking. Sharing, expressing needs, boundaries, desires. It could be hours, they lie in bed, wrapped around each other, working through mountains of questions together and individually.

“So, I know you’ve already had a lot of curveballs thrown at you tonight—”

“Sports metaphors? Really, Kara? You need to stop spending so much time with James Olsen.”

The blonde smiles weakly. “There’s more. Something…crazy weird. Beyond words. I don’t really know how you’ll react to it.”

Lena stiffens a little, scooting away from Kara a bit so they can look at each other properly. “Well that’s quite the preamble.”

“Mon-El is back.”

Initially, her only reaction is to blink several times. Then, she fully sits up in bed, pulling her knees up and resting her elbows on them, the heels of her hands rubbing at her forehead.

“…How?”

“His pod got knocked off course into a wormhole that sent him into the thirty-first century. He lived there seven years leading an intergalactic legion of superheroes until _their_ ship got sent through a wormhole and landed them here, but twelve-thousand years ago, so they’ve been in hypersleep ever since, waiting for the thirty-first century, but Morgan Edge’s little stunt on the waterfront last month damaged their ship and woke Mon-El up. Also he has a wife. She’s from Saturn. She’s part of the Legion too.”

“Yeah, I need a scotch.”

She moves to get up, but by the time she’s uncurled her body, Kara is already back sitting next to her, holding a bottle of scotch and a glass.

“Is this one okay? Or, do you want ice? I can heat up your leftover noodles, if you—”

“This will suffice, darling. Thank you.”

And she resists the urge to kiss her by pouring a glass of scotch to occupy her mouth, instead.

“So…the lead?”

“Apparently in about four hundred years, L-Corp develops a vaccine for lead poisoning.”

“Four _hundred_ years? I put it on the R&D docket a month ago, it takes four _hundred_ years?!”

Kara furrows her brows. “You put it on the docket?”

“Well, yes. I invest heavily in medical research, you know that. And…well, I’ve felt guilty.”

“Lena, you know you didn’t poison those kids.”

“It wasn’t the kids, Kara. I’ve felt guilty about Mon-El.”

“Oh.”

“ _Oh_ ,” Lena mumbles back teasingly. “Regardless of circumstances, he was a good man who you care about a lot. You shouldn’t have had to send him away, you shouldn’t have had to go through that.”

Kara smiles brightly, putting her head in Lena’s lap. “You’re a really wonderful person, Lena.”

“You are too, darling,” Lena sighs, hesitating slightly before beginning to comb her fingers through blonde curls.

“Is this okay?” the Kryptonian asks in a small voice, wrapping her arms around Lena’s waist.

“Of course. Is it okay with you?”

She nods, nuzzling Lena’s soft navel a bit.

“So…how are you feeling? Having Mon-El back?”

“It’s…unexpected. Complicated, and it just keeps getting more and more complicated, but—mostly, I’m relieved. I’m glad to know he’s okay. That he’s alive and well and finally living up to his potential and helping people. Helping the world. I know most people didn’t see it, but I always knew he’s a good man.”

“Have you told him yet? About…what we talked about tonight?”

“No, of course not. I wanted to talk to you about it first. I wanted to tell you days ago, but I didn’t know how. Besides, I-I’m not sure I want anyone other than you and Alex to know quite yet. Not until I’ve had a little more time to figure things out.”

“This is your journey, my love. You go through it at your pace, however you want. Don’t let anyone or anything pressure you or tell you otherwise.”

“Thank you,” Kara hums, closing her eyes and melting further into Lena’s touch. “I’m starting to get sleepy.”

“Go to sleep, darling.”

“Will you stay here?”

“Nowhere else I’d rather be.”

She momentarily puts down her drink to carefully ease Kara’s glasses off her face and place them on the nightstand, then settles back into the pillows, pulling Kara’s curled up form with her, one hand stroking the side of her face and hair with kind, affectionate comfort, the other hand wrapped (with almost as much reverence, frankly) around her glass of scotch.

Her adorable alien is asleep in moments under her fingers, and Lena pulls a blanket over her body, draping an arm over her torso. Looking down at the impeccable woman snuggled in her lap—this brave, strong, kind woman—Lena allows herself to shed a few, silent tears for what she fears will happen next.

\----

Similar scenes take place over the following three nights—after they each spend their days processing, researching, debating internally (and, in Kara’s case, talking extensively with Alex), they hold each other close while sharing and discussing their thoughts and feelings and reactions and desires.

It’s the fourth night that they reach a painful but mutual decision.

“It’s not fair,” Kara sniffs. “I love you so much, I wish I could give you everything you need.”

“I love you too, Kara,” Lena whispers soothingly. “But we both deserve to happy, without having to betray who we are at our cores. This isn’t your fault, okay? I hope if you take nothing else away from this, you understand that it is not your fault, _never_ your fault for being who you are. You are perfect, and important, and special, and brave, and beautiful, exactly how you are. I’m so proud of you for embracing yourself, for being honest with yourself and with me. You are perfect and you deserve everything you want.”

“You’re perfect, too.”

“I’m so sorry,” the younger woman breathes into blonde hair, pressing a kiss to her forehead (having confirmed in earlier conversations that such affectionate, non-sexual kisses are okay). “I wish I could give you everything. I wish we could have everything together.”

“You have, Lena,” Kara vows, lifting her head to lock onto shining green eyes. “You’ve given me the world. You helped me figure this all out, you helped me realize who I am, supported me through it. I owe this all to you. Thank you.”

She reaches out, cupping Lena’s pale, tear-stained cheek, and the latter nuzzles into the gesture.

“I’m still sorry,” Lena offers. “Especially about the whole…time and space thing.”

“No,” Kara insists. “Hey, don’t do that. You have been so gentle and patient and accommodating and understanding…do you know how rare and amazing it is that you’re willing to do this for me? The very, very least I owe you is the same patience and compassion. If you need a few weeks of time and space to transition from relationship to romantic friendship, then that’s what I’ll give you. Even if you need a few _months_ , that’s what I’ll give you. Yeah, it’ll suck, but I’ll give you it. I want you to be happy. I want to take care of you, and give you what you need. I’ve had much longer to process this than you have. It’s been…over a year, honestly, that I’ve had this nagging suspicion that I’m—” She cuts herself off with a frustrated sigh. “Anyway, you’ve only had a few days. I’ll be here if you need me, and I know that—if it really comes down to it, and I really, actually need you—you will be there for me, too, no matter what. But I want to make this as easy for you as I can, so if you need a few weeks where I don’t call or text or drop by, then that’s what I’m gonna do, until you tell me otherwise.”

“Thank you, Kara,” Lena smiles. “I hope you know—it won’t be any easier for me than it will be for you. But I think it’s necessary, for me. It’ll be difficult to just go back to what we had before, unless I have some time to…distance myself, from the feelings I’ve developed. You know I still, and always will, love you, right?”

“I love you too,” she returns, but the shrewd businesswoman, erudite in reading expressions, can tell she’s holding back.

“What are you worried about, darling?”

Biting her lip, Kara takes a second to internally deliberate, before eventually chiding herself for breaking their first and foremost rule: _honest communication_. So, she fesses up. “I know we’ve talked about it, but…I’m still worried about what happens if you meet someone else. Someone who doesn’t understand me, or what we have. Someone who feels…threatened by it.”

Lena moves her hand to cup her girlfriend’s—no, best friend, now—face, a simple act meant to convey sheer worship. “Kara Danvers, I promise you, from the bottom of my heart, that nobody— _nobody_ —will ever, ever be allowed into my life who does not value and respect our relationship. I have no room for anyone who feels threatened by you. Who does not understand _you_. Who fails to validate _you_. People like that are not worthy of my time. _When_ someone worthy comes into your life, or mine—which they will—then that just means more conversations. We can’t plan for that now, though, because it will depend on who the new person is, and what they want, and et cetera. All I can tell you now is that I will never give the time of day to anyone who distrusts you, or distrusts our connection. I won’t stand for anyone disrespecting you.”

Kara beams, but there’s a tinge of melancholy to it. “What did I ever do to deserve you?”

“Oh, my love,” Lena murmurs. “You deserve so much more than me.”

“That’s not what this is about. You know that, right?”

“Of course I do, darling. That’s not what I meant. I just mean that…unfortunately, we don’t fit. As much as we wish we would, we don’t. And you deserve to have that with someone. You deserve someone who you don’t have to compromise for, who doesn’t have to compromise for you. And that person is out there, I promise you. You are the kindest, loveliest, most compassionate and overall extraordinary person this world has ever seen. One day, you will have everything you want and deserve.”

Running a thumb over red lips, Kara nods. “You will too. I know it. People should be lining up for miles just for a chance to have you love them back.”

Lena pouts. “Promise me you won’t let anyone else let you believe you’re anything less than perfect?”

Smirking, Kara retorts, “Only if you can promise me the same thing.”

“I suppose that’s fair,” Lena rolls her eyes in tacit acknowledgement that neither of them can make that guarantee. “But this isn’t goodbye, you know. I’ll still always be there to thoroughly vet any potential suitors.”

“As will I,” the alien echoes. “And I know it isn’t goodbye. It can’t be goodbye, or I wouldn’t ever leave this bed.”

“Two weeks,” Lena declares. “Bare minimum. Because you know, you can always call me if—”

“I know.”

“So two weeks, then. Barring any emergency, no matter how minor. Otherwise, I will call you in two weeks, and we will see where we both stand.”

Kara nods timidly. “Have you told Sam yet?”

“No…no, I’m not ready for that. I’ll be okay.”

“I don’t want you to be alone, Lena.”

“I’ll be okay. I can handle it.”

And Kara frowns, but doesn’t object any further.

They spend the night together. They hold each other close as they sleep, and for several hours after they wake up, until Kara gets called away on urgent Supergirl business, at which point they exchange a weighty hug.

“Two weeks,” Lena swears, her voice a tiny breath in Kara’s ear, but her words an eternal, irrevocable oath.

“Barring emergency,” Kara counters, and Lena repeats the words back.

“Barring emergency. Two weeks.”

“I love you, Lena.”

“I love you too, Kara.”

Then she flies off, and the raven-haired woman is left alone.

Desolate and empty, she calls James and tells him she’s needed at L Corp all day, then calls Sam and tells her she’s needed at CatCo all day, effectively allowing herself the opportunity to avoid work altogether. Instead, she opts to open a bottle of champagne, although it’s only eight in the morning. She doesn’t even bother with the pretense of mimosas—hell, she doesn’t even bother with the pretense of a glass. She pops the cork and drinks straight from the bottle, cocooned in blankets on her couch. For the first time in God-only-knows how long, she switches her television to a channel other than the news (during the _daytime!_ ), finding a _Say Yes to the Dress_ marathon. She watches episode after episode, scoffing at all the thin, rich women spending thousands of dollars on a dress they’ll only wear once, gritting her teeth at their supposed love stories, snickering at the family drama and spiteful “friends” of the bride.

In short, she spends the morning bathing in champagne and cynicism.

At some point, the bottles of effervescent alcohol affects her such that she slumps over on the couch and takes a lengthy nap, one which is interrupted only by a knock on her door.

She jerks awake at that sound, and with a glance at the clock, realizes it’s almost seven in the evening, and she’s been conked out for at least five hours. Taking a deep breath and rubbing her eyes, she tries to ignore the interruption, until another, louder, more insistent knock echoes through her penthouse.

So, she throws the blankets off of her body, leaving her dressed in the thin but cozy sweatpants and shirt she went to sleep in the previous evening, and heads toward the door.

Alex Danvers is at her door.

_What the hell?_


	2. i'm an open book (if you know where to look)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With the help of bourbon and tacos, Alex and Lena commiserate over their recent breakups.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, I'm the first to admit I don't know much for certain in this world. But one thing I do know for certain is this:
> 
> If you leave two woman-loving women in a room together overnight (especially if one or both of them is going through Emotions) they will know everything about each other's exes and childhood traumas by sunrise. 
> 
> (Or at least that's my excuse for how this turned into 6k+ words of Alex and Lena unabashedly baring their damn souls to each other.)

_Why is Alex Danvers at my door?_

“Hey,” the normally-brusque agent is quite friendly when Lena finally swings the door open, even going so far as to shoot the newly-heartbroken woman a sympathetic smile.

“What are you doing here?” Lena asks, shocked at how raw and hoarse her own voice sounds. “Shouldn’t you be with Kara? Is she okay, is she hurt?”

Alex half-smirks, but keeps her tone collected and kind. “She’s fine. She asked me to come here instead. She said the best way I could help her through this was to make sure you're taken care of.”

Lena’s face quivers at this, and the redhead backtracks a bit.

“But I can leave. I just thought—” She holds up a black plastic bag with a brown paper bag inside it. “—getting drunk with another human is infinitely more fun than getting drunk alone. Or, getting drunk with Kara, which is basically the same as getting drunk alone, because, well, she can’t get drunk. But if you’d rather be alone, I get that, and I will take my leave.”

A manicured black eyebrow crooks up. “It’s not tequila, is it?”

“Come on, you think I don’t know you at all? It’s bourbon. The good stuff.”

“You’re a woman after my own heart. Come in, Agent Danvers.” She steps aside to allow the lithe woman into her apartment, only to become immediately self-conscious of its state. “Excuse the mess, I’m—”

“A woman who just experienced a highly-emotional breakup within the last twelve hours? Yeah, I’ve seen worse. Hell, when Maggie and I broke up, Kara had to abscond with me to Midvale.”

Lena grimaces, pulling a pair of rocks glasses from her cabinet. “That’s right. How are you holding up, incidentally?”

Alex scowls slightly. “I’m doing about as well as you’ll be doing in twelve days, except without the added comfort of knowing Maggie will still be in my life in some way, shape, or form.”

Flinching at the other woman’s frankness, Lena watches as the older Danvers pours healthy glasses of brown liquor for each of them. “I’m sure you and Maggie will find some way to be friends, eventually. Just give it time.”

Releasing a single, dry chuckle, the older woman sets down the bottle of bourbon a little too forcefully. “Nope. Maggie decided that it would be, quote, ‘ _too difficult_.’ And how could I argue with that? I’m the one who couldn’t acquiesce; I’m the one who did the breaking-up-with.”

Lena sighs, raising her glass and tipping it slightly toward her companion. “Here’s to being so damn set in your desires that you destroy the best thing to ever happen to you.”

They toast, but after a desperate gulp each, Alex eyes Lena sympathetically. “You know, you didn’t destroy anything. You… _thank you_. Fuck, I’m sure Kara’s said it to you a hundred times, but…thank you, Lena. You gave her space and room and compassion and…I can never thank you enough for being for her what she needed, but I could never be. I—honestly, I feel like a moron. I should have realized sooner, but I—and God, I _pushed_ you. I pushed you to open yourself up, to confess your feelings to her, and you—you’ve handled this all with such grace and kindness, and I could never ever express my gratitude enough.”

With a dejected sigh, the Luthor sinks into her couch. “I’m the moron. How do you have sex with someone without realizing that they don’t like it?”

Alex fakes a cough around the pointed, muffled words: “ _Inferiority complex_.”

And Lena can’t lie, it draws a genuine laugh from her. The first laugh she’s had in days, because the shadow of her new reality has obscured any real sense of humor.

“I could say the same to you, Agent Danvers,” Lena counters with a cocked eyebrow.

And Alex’s eyes roll almost audibly. “Please, for all that is good in this world, stop calling me that. I’m off the damn clock, for once, and I’d like to take this opportunity to get drunk and be heartbroken without the weight of the world on me.”

Lena smiles brightly, genuinely. “God, that sounds perfect right now.”

Smirking, the older Danvers falls onto the couch, as well. The piece of furniture is long enough that they could be more than arms’ distance away, but Alex ensures they are close enough to toast by sticking out her glass as she sits, letting it collide with Lena’s with an audible _clink_.

“Here’s to being strong enough to stand up for ourselves and what we need.”

That sentiment, that summary of what Lena’s just done, of the amicable split she’s just experienced, could have brought her to tears.

But instead, she downs her bourbon in one pull, daring Alex with her eyes to question the action. To her undying credit, the agent doesn’t falter, merely picks up the bottle to refill her counterpart’s empty glass.

“So, how are you holding up?”

“After she left this morning, I drank three bottles of champagne then passed out on my couch.”

“Well, at least you’re getting some sleep.”

“A solid five hours until I was rudely awoken by an angel bearing bourbon.”

Alex chuckles. “How about food? Have you eaten?”

Lena pulls her legs up on the couch, tucking them under her body and releasing a mirthless laugh. “I always forget to eat. Kara teases me about it constantly, but she also took it upon herself to remind me.”

“Right. Well, how do you feel about Mexican food?”

“I _love_ Mexican food,” she responds with a quirked eyebrow. “I haven’t had Mexican food in a long time.”

“Because Kara hates it,” Alex grins mischievously. “I’m never allowed to order it when she’s around, so I assume you aren’t, either.”

Suddenly, Lena seems whimsically excited, leaning toward Alex slightly and lowering her voice, as if her next suggestion is some playful secret between teenagers planning a party while their parents are out of town. “We should order a mountain of tacos and a lifetime supply of chips and salsa and get absurdly drunk while we eat every last bite.”

“Oh, I’m so in. Let’s order so much food it takes two delivery people to carry it.”

They order, and as they wait for the food—which eventually arrives, somewhat to their disappointment, carried by only one delivery person (albeit an obviously strong, heavily-laden one)—then eat it, their conversation reads more like banter. They avoid talking about Kara and heartbreak as much as possible, instead focusing on the other things they most have share in common: science, drinking, mommy issues, workaholism, an intense drive to save the world, the use of fatalistic sarcasm as a coping mechanism. Even while discussing heavier topics, they share a lightness, punctuated by dark humor and good-natured insults directed at themselves and at each other.

“Can I ask you a question?” Lena interjects at one point, following a rousing story of how Alex took her MCAT while still drunk from the previous night yet somehow scored highest in her class. “And don’t be an asshole and say I already did.”

“You can ask,” Alex smirks, a glint in her eye as she refills their glasses. “Doesn’t mean I’ll answer.”

“You never talk about what your life was like before.”

“Before what?”

“Before your parents sat you down and said, ‘Meet your new alien sister.’”

The redhead’s jaw squares up, her nostrils flaring. “That’s not a question.”

“Not directly, no, but I don’t think you got a MD/PhD at twenty-three by being unable to identify an implicit question within a statement,” Lena deadpans. “Like I said. You don’t have to answer. I’m merely…curious. Lex was nearly thirteen when I was adopted by the Luthors, and he saw this scared, helpless little four-year-old girl as—” She cuts herself off with a wry chuckle and a sip of whiskey. “Well, in retrospect, I’m sure he saw me as a pawn he could mold and manipulate for his own benefit and amusement, but at the time, it didn’t feel that way. It felt like he’d welcomed me in, like he wanted to take care of me and make me feel at home. I just…I don’t know. You sometimes allude to this idea that you weren’t always a perfect sister, but I wonder—never mind.”

Brown eyes shine with a profound vulnerability as they study Lena. “Wonder what?”

“I wonder if the fact that you didn’t immediately warm to the idea of being a sister is actually yet another reflection of just how good a sister you truly are. You’re obviously a compulsive perfectionist—”

“Takes one to know one.”

Lena glares at her in playful admonishment before continuing, “ _Anyway_. I just find it interesting how seldom you talk about what your life looked like before.”

Alex snorts. “You’ll be relieved to know that my life of science fairs and reading and helping Jeremiah with engineering projects was nowhere near as interesting as my life spent helping my alien sister acclimate to her new planet and powers.” After a long sip from her glass, she shrugs. “Besides, I wasn’t actually that bad, at first. It wasn’t until after my dad disappeared that I started to resent her.”

“Because you were carrying the burden of a splintered family on your teenaged shoulders?”

A faint blush creeps over her cheeks. “I…I wouldn’t quite word it like that.”

Lena smirks. “So you helped her, at first?”

“Of course. I mean…yeah, technically she was thirteen years old, or whatever, but in practice, she was just as scared and helpless as you were when you came to the Luthors’. She’d just watched her whole planet burn, she’d lost her whole family, and then she lands here to find out she lost her purpose, too, because Kal-El had already grown up and become Superman. He didn’t need her to watch over him, like she was sent here to do.” Lifting her glass to her lips, Alex scoffs scornfully, shakes her head, and mutters, “Not that it ever occurred to him to return the favor.”

“What do you mean?” the young billionaire asks, repositioning herself on the couch and unconsciously ending up a bit closer to the other woman than before.

“Clark brought her to my family with all the courtesy of a terrified teen mom anonymously leaving her baby outside a fire station. He didn’t even stay for dinner, for Christ’s sake. He dropped her off and we didn’t hear from him until two years later, at my dad’s memorial.”

“Wow. That’s—”

“Shitty,” Alex fills in the blank before Lena even has a chance to, raising her voice, her tone adopting a quality usually reserved for reprimanding her agents. “Real fucking shitty, if you ask me. Kara always seems to forget about that little fact. She lets her guilt about her pod getting knocked off course—as if that’s her fault, at all—absolve Clark of all his guilt. He abandoned her when she needed him most. He was the last shred of home that she had, the only familiar thing available to her, and he just dumped her on our doorstep and fucked off.”

Lena’s eyebrows arch up in some mixture of shock and marvel. “Well. I haven’t heard anyone speak of Superman with such vitriol since Lex’s last ranting voicemail from prison.”

“I’m sorry,” the agent grumbles, rubbing her forehead with the heels of her hands. “I just…I don’t think I’ll ever forgive him for it. She was so overwhelmed, all the time, and he would have been such a better help than I ever was. How was I supposed to teach her how to hone her super hearing, or how to keep from breaking every single thing she touched?”

“Wow. Lex only had to teach me to play chess and run fast enough that our alcoholic father couldn’t keep up.”

They share a chuckle, until Alex’s laughter becomes louder and less controlled, seemingly unprompted at first, until she shares:

“You know, the first time Kara hugged me, she dislocated my shoulder.”

Lena’s jaw drops, letting go a few stunned chuckles, unable to hold back given the other woman’s infectious, uproarious laughter. “What?!”

“She felt _so_ bad, oh my God. It was weeks before she’d come anywhere near me again. She practiced on trees in the forest preserves by our school, and she smashed so many that Midvale PD got called in to investigate the suspicious activity. It’s still an open case.”

They laugh at that until their sides start to hurt. As their residual giggles die down, Lena drains her glass, frowning over at the empty bottle.

“Well, we’ve certainly had a lot to drink.”

“Wow,” Alex whistles. “We drank a whole bottle in—”

But then she checks her watch, and her eyes widen.

“It’s almost three in the morning.”

“That’s impossible,” Lena replies, pulling out her phone to prove her wrong, only to prove herself wrong, instead.

“Read it and weep, Luthor.”

Lena looks up from her phone, her eyes sparkling with humor as she stares into Alex’s.

And for a second, she feels something…complicated.

Just for a second, though, because no quicker than she notices it is she quashing it. Telling herself she’s drunk, heartbroken, conflating attention with affection. It’s something about the Danvers sisters, they transport her to a world where nothing else exists other than the room they’re in. It’s always been like that with Kara, and it has been like that with Alex ever since that fateful day four-ish weeks ago, when Alex came to the L-Corp lab and encouraged her to pursue her feelings for Kara.

She quickly dismisses those memories, too. Instead, she opts to deflect with self-deprecating humor—one of her favorite coping mechanisms, and one to which she notices Alex is no stranger.

“I can’t remember the last time I stayed up this late for pleasure, rather than business.”

Alex simpers. “Wanna fully embrace our mutual self-destruction and pull an all-nighter just for the hell of it?”

Lena grins devilishly. “You’re a terrible influence, you know that, right?”

“You love it.”

“I have a wonderful scotch I think you’ll appreciate.”

When Lena returns with the bottle and a fresh pair of glasses, she might sit an inch or two closer to Alex than she had before she got up, but that’s neither here nor there.

“So, out of curiosity, how exactly did that conversation go with your parents?”

Confused, the redhead accepts the glass of scotch, throwing her arm over the back of the couch in a way that means when Lena then settles against the cushions, Alex’s arm is more or less resting across pale, tee-shirt clad shoulders. Because Alex is comforting her, Lena reminds herself.

“What conversation?”

“The one where they told you that you’d be getting a new sister, who by the way, is an alien.”

The older Danvers shrugs. “I mean, it basically went like that. They sat me down, said that Clark’s cousin landed on Earth, that she was around my age but had been asleep in the timeless void of space for two dozen years, and she was gonna live with us, and that she was going to be my sister now. Then an hour later, she showed up.”

Lena gapes. “An _hour_?”

“Yeah.”

“Good Lord. No wonder it took you a while to come around.”

“No, I mean—even when I resented her, when I hated her, it was all misplaced. It wasn’t her fault. It was never her fault that my parents just…took her in, without ever asking me if I was okay with it. That one day, they just sat me down and essentially said to me: you have a sister now. You have a sister now, and your responsibility—your only responsibility, forget any other responsibility you’ve ever had for the last thirteen-plus years—your one responsibility now is to take care of your sister. And as much as I hated it, at the time, it…I don’t know. Being Kara’s sister is the best thing that ever happened to me, the most incredible privilege I've ever been given. It's the one thing in my life that always makes sense. No matter what, it has always made sense, even when I’ve hated it, or resented it, or whatever. It’s never hard. It always feels right.”

“I must say, you’re very good at it,” Lena smiles at her.

Alex blushes, runs her fingers through her hair. After a sip of scotch, she narrows her eyes and peers conspiratorially at Lena. “I feel like I’m talking a lot. I came here to comfort you, and here I am, blabbering away about my own bullshit.”

With a bitter chuckle, Lena retorts, “Well, your life proves infinitely more compelling and impressive than mine.”

“I doubt that. Nobody who’s a billionaire CEO at age twenty-five can be uncompelling or unimpressive.”

“I inherited my dead father’s money and my demented brother’s company. They’re hardly accomplishments.”

“I’d disagree with that framing,” Alex protests. “You’ve done incredible things, Lena. You are one of the most intelligent, poised, fearless people I know. It’s crazy, watching your brain work. In a cool way, I mean.”

A morose realization crosses Lena’s mind, and she has trouble keeping the emotion from her face. Alex questions it immediately.

“What’s wrong? Did I say something bad?”

“No,” Lena jumps to reassure her, but then bites her lip, struggling to express the next part. “It’s just—that sounds like something Kara would say to me. And it made me remember that unless something horrible happens, I won’t see Kara for two weeks.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“But it’s a self-imposed deadline. If you called Kara right now and said you wanted to see her, she’d be here before you could finish your sentence.”

“That’s not the point,” Lena sighs, tucking her legs under her body. “If we’re going to go back to how we were before—best friends, who share affection, intimacy, maybe even something akin to romance, but without so much as kissing—I need time. I can’t—how am I just supposed to _stop_ being attracted to her? How am I supposed to turn off the part of me that wants to kiss her senseless every time she smiles at me or says something dorky or lands on my balcony just to say hi before she flies off to save the world? I need time to process, to retrain my brain. It will take me a while until I can look at her and see my best friend, not my girlfriend, or my _ex_ -girlfriend, or my best friend who I _wish_ were my girlfriend.”

Alex nods mournfully. “I understand. And it’ll be hard, I won’t lie to you. But it’s better to do it now, to admit to yourself you need time and take it, rather than pretending and repressing everything, rushing into things. It takes impossible strength and courage, and I admire it.”

“You essentially did the same thing with Maggie.”

“Ehhhhh,” Alex drawls, screwing up her face in embarrassment. “Actually, I didn’t. I put up walls the size of the Himalayas during days of exhausting conversation where we tried to pretend there was any way to work through our predicament, then on the day she was going to move out and make it official, we drank half a bottle of tequila someone sent us for the wedding that never happened and had several rounds of emotionally-volatile break-up sex.”

“Was it at least _good_ sex?”

“It was…cathartic. I mean, I’d broken both our hearts, and…the sex reflected that.”

Lena pauses a moment, then glances over with a slight blush over her cheeks. “So you remember the whole boob-staring thing we talked about in my lab?”

“Yeah,” she groans, then frowns slightly. “Wait, what was that about?”

“Apparently, when Kara stared at my boobs, she wasn’t thinking ‘oh, boobs, hot.’ She says it’s like seeing a warm, comfy bed at the end of a long day.”

Alex’s lips quirk. “That’s…wow. Leave it to Kara Danvers to somehow break and warm your heart with the same sentence.”

With a rather inelegant snort, she smooths imaginary wrinkles from her shirt. “Yes. It would be rather endearing if it didn’t make me feel like a complete idiot.”

Alex takes pity on her more-freshly heartbroken friend.

“Hey, it’s not your fault. How could you be expected to figure out Kara is ace when she hadn’t even figured it out yet?”

Lena bristles. “She hasn’t used that word yet.”

Alex’s face screws up in a combination of bafflement and uncertainty. “She has with me.”

Tears invade green eyes.

“A couple days ago. Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned—she said she didn’t know if it was the right word yet, but she wanted to see how it felt, how it sounded coming out of her mouth. Wanted to see if it made her feel better, if it felt right.”

And the CEO instantly recognizes the suggestion she’d given Kara, and to hear that Kara had heeded it, had sought the safety of her sister and followed Lena’s advice—the floodgates open.

For the first time since this all began five days ago, Lena allows herself to feel the full onslaught of her emotions. No longer needing to be strong for Kara, no longer needing to reassure the beautiful blonde that she safe and valid and blameless, that they would be fine, that their friendship is invincible—Lena breaks.

She breaks, and Alex’s arms wrap around her in a tight, grounding embrace, contrasted by the gentle, soothing sounds murmured into Lena’s ear.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay. You’re okay. Just let it out, okay? You’ll feel so much better. You’ve been so strong, so tough, and you deserve to grieve. Let yourself feel, okay? I’ll be right here. I’m right here, I’ll take care of you. I promise.”

And she keeps her promise. She holds her, strokes her hair, shushes her, wipes her tears, lets her bury her pale face into strong shoulders, until Lena finally cries herself out—it could be a few minutes, it could be a few hours, neither are sure. The Luthor’s concept of time is obscured by her unfettered emotions, and the Danvers’s concept of time is obscured by her intrinsic need to comfort and support the woman half-cradled in her lap.

With some awkwardness, Lena shuffles away from her ex-girlfriend’s sister, extracting herself from those lanky yet strong arms with a sheepish smile and a clearing of her throat.

“Well.”

“Well,” Alex echoes, unsure.

“For what it’s worth,” Lena offers timidly, her eyes meeting Alex’s in a heartfelt yet uneasy stare. “You’re going to make an excellent mother, and you deserve a partner who sees that about you and finds it nothing short of miraculous. And, frankly, sexy.”

The older woman simpers coyly. “You find maternal instinct sexy, Luthor?”

Lena shrugs noncommittally. “Again, frankly—and please keep in mind, I mean no offense to Maggie or anyone else, but I am quite drunk and fragile and I feel safe expressing this particular sentiment to you—I don’t understand people who don’t want kids. I respect it, of course, but I have difficulty relating to it. Even as someone with a less than positive view of my family—”

Alex lets out a shameless guffaw at that. “That’s a diplomatic way to put it.”

“ _Anyway_ ,” she grumbles, unable to repress the corresponding grin that seems to follow every joke the agent has made all night long. “I’ve spent so many years trying to make a life, a name for myself separate from my family. Trying to rewrite their wrongs, trying to neutralize the connotations of my surname. And I’m sure many in my position would be afraid to bring new, innocent lives into the world carrying the weight of the Luthor legacy…but the way I see it, how better to separate myself, once and for all, from my family than to start one of my own?”

They both smile widely. “I think that’s beautiful.”

“Yeah,” Lena chuckles forlornly. “But beyond that, I’ve always wanted a daughter. Not because I care about dressing her in pink, or making her wear bows or tutus or anything cruel like that. I want a little girl I can raise to be the most unstoppable fucking woman the world has ever seen. A sheer force of nature, so ruthlessly whoever she wants to be that the world fears and loves her with the same vigor."

Alex barks out a laugh. "That sounds awesome."

"And—more than that, even," she adds, a little less confidently. "I want a little girl so I can name her Maeve. After my mom. My _real_ mom.”

“Maeve?” A brilliant, fond beam spreads across her face at being read in to the younger woman’s inner thoughts.

“Maeve Kieran. That was my mom’s name.”

“What was she like?”

Lena’s face sets into a sad, nostalgic expression, her lips quirked up but her eyes brimming with tears.

“You don’t have to tell me,” Alex adds softly, compassionately. “It’s okay.”

But with a shake of her head and a brief swipe of her finger under each eye, Lena steels. “No, no, it’s okay. I don’t talk about her enough. I should—”

“There’s no should here, Lena. It’s whatever you’re comfortable with.”

And that causes her to reach out, lacing her fingers with the redhead’s. She isn’t sure exactly _why_ she’s compelled toward this gesture, but she is, and it feels so right, and she isn’t met with any resistance—if anything, she’s met with kind reciprocation, so she doesn’t feel the need to analyze her impetuses too deeply.

“No, I want to,” she underscores. “My mom…she was my hero. She still is, honestly. She shapes my whole world, every day. I still remember her voice, and her laugh, and the way she would look at me like I was a miracle. Like I was all that mattered to her. Like the world could burn, but as long as she still had me, she’d be content. And I use those things as a compass. Whenever I can’t picture my mother, looking down at me with such… _reverence_ , tucking me into bed and staying there way longer I needed her to, but she’d still hold me, reading me story after story just so she’d have an excuse to spend more time with me—if I can’t picture that, I know I’ve lost my way. I know that I am…deviating. From being a Kieran-turned-Luthor to being a true-to-form-Luthor.”

Alex nods in grave understanding. “Can I ask how she died?”

Lena’s stomach churns at that, and her eyes well up further. She doesn’t tell this story, normally. She’s quick to inform anyone and everyone that she’s adopted, that she wasn’t supposed to be a Luthor, wasn’t supposed to grow up with Lillian or Lex or even Lionel, but she rarely discloses the circumstances which forced her to do so, anyway.

She hasn’t even told Kara.

“You don’t have to answer,” Alex reminds her gently, almost teasingly, a sly half-smile penetrating her otherwise self-conscious expression. “That’s our new rule, right? I can ask, but you don’t have to answer, and vice versa.”

And God, how can Lena keep her defenses up after that? She’s done this same thing to Alex countless times in the last few hours, and the badass secret agent, typically just a step or two above curtly polite and to-the-point in their interactions, had opened up like a tulip in April. What was stopping Lena from extending the same courtesy?

Besides—if nothing else, she always has the excuse that the alcohol rendered her loose-lipped.

So, she takes the leap.

“She drowned,” Lena gulps, looking into the dark amber liquid in her glass, rather than the matching eyes next to her on the couch. “I was four. We went on a trip, to visit family. There was this lake house, near Shannon. On Lough Derg. It was far from the little Dublin suburb where we lived, and it was such a long car ride to get there, but I think we were the still first of the family to arrive—some of the details are a little blurry. But others…aren’t. It was overcast, when we got there, and I was upset, because I thought beaches had to be sunny, but my mom kept telling me that the clouds and the rain are what make things green. And she was right—everything was so green. I’d never seen so much green in my life. She wanted to go swimming, but I wanted to keep looking at all the green. So she told me to stay on shore, and she would see me soon.”

Lena pauses, and Alex, knowing what’s coming, merely squeezes Lena’s hand reassuringly.

“I never saw her again. I knew something was wrong—I knew. But I…I didn’t call for help, I didn’t go after her. I just…froze. I—”

She pauses again, but upon noticing Alex’s mouth open to begin her protests, she jumps back in, her voice laced with something close to indignation.

“And I _know_ what you’re going to say. _‘You were only four, Lena, how could you possibly think you’re to blame? What could you possibly have done?_ ’ And let me just tell you—”

“That’s not what I was gonna say,” Alex interjects bluntly.

Scrutinizing her expression, Lena follows up with a simple, “Oh?”

“No. I was going to say that I understood. I’d probably do the exact same thing, react the exact same way, if it’d happened to me.”

Suddenly, Lena feels it again. That… _complicated_ feeling, that Pandora’s box of an emotion, the one she isn’t willing to unpack for fear of what’s inside, underneath.

 _You’re just drunk, heartbroken, conflating attention with affection_. _Get a hold of yourself._

Refusing to acknowledge the storm brewing under her skin, Lena allows herself only one, small morsel: “I’m very glad you came over tonight, Alex.”

Beaming dumbly (presumably without awareness), Alex admits, “Yeah. Me too.”

They share an extended moment of prolonged, poignant eye contact, until they both blush simultaneously and it abruptly becomes awkward.

“Right, well,” Lena says, clearing her throat pointedly. “So…Maggie was really your first girlfriend?”

Alex chuckles, tucking her hair behind her ear. “Yeah. Yeah, she was. Like I said, I repressed some stuff.”

Lena smirks. “Well, as far as first girlfriends go, I’d say you had a pretty good one.”

“Oh yeah?” she retorts, her voice dripping with self-hatred. “Then why’d I let her go?”

“Oh, darling,” the raven-haired woman clicks her tongue sympathetically. “You deserve far better than ‘pretty good.’”

Alex merely snorts, so Lena changes tactics, staring into hazel eyes with almost intimidating intent, were it not for the hint of humor and affection hiding within those blazing green irises.

“My first girlfriend…well, my first _real_ girlfriend. At boarding school, of course, I had my fair share of flings, and friendships-turned-secret-romances, but never anything real, where we would hold hands in public or admit, even to each other, that we were dating. So my first actual girlfriend happened when I was in college. She was older than me. I was…eighteen, nineteen. And she was twenty-seven, twenty-eight. It ‘weirded her out,’ as she so eloquently put it, but I’ve always been…mature for my age, so frankly, she usually forgot about the age difference unless it was explicitly brought up. We were together a while. Almost a year.”

Frowning, she asks, “What happened?”

And Lena shrugs. “Hard to say, really. In general, she never seemed to be serious about us. I always felt like I was talking her into loving me. Like I was trying to convince her to be with me, even after we’d been together for so long. After seven or eight months, she started breaking up with me. For stupid reasons, too. Just picking fights, or saying we weren’t right for each other, giving any excuse to say we were over with, until a week later, when she’d change her mind and say we could work it out. And I was so young, so naïve, so desperate to be with her, to be _wanted_ at all, that I let her do it. I kept welcoming her back in, until…” The dark-haired woman shares a small smile, seemingly with herself, but obviously one of self-deprecation. “One time, she made some silly joke, teasing me about something. It wasn’t unusual for her; she was clearly trying to pick another fight. But I was distracted, focused on studying, and so I accidentally took it seriously. I thought she was truly accusing me, angry with me, and instead of taking the hit, instead of…genuflecting and begging forgiveness, like I normally would with her, I bit back. She didn’t take it well, graciously speaking. She refused to talk to me for a week. I called, texted, and she…nothing. Suddenly, the double standard became so apparent. I let her get away with anything, but I couldn’t slip up at all, or I’d be punished. Cut out. It was a dynamic all too…familiar.”

“You mean familial?” Alex remarks.

The Luthor ignores what she sees as a rhetorical question. “So, I broke up with her. When she finally deigned to talk to me again, after that week of cold shouldering, I broke up with her, and even though she’d broken up with me three times in as many months prior to that, she became the victim. She was the victim, the heartbroken one, and I was the cold-hearted monster, because I had the strength to do what she couldn’t—I had the strength to not come crawling back.”

“Wow,” Alex whistles. “And you still kept dating women?”

“Of course,” Lena asserts. “Women are impeccable.”

With a single bark of laughter, Alex raises her glass. “Cheers to that.”

“Besides, I learned a valuable lesson from her,” the billionaire sighs. “Never, _ever_ , trust someone who refuses to take any responsibility for the downfall of their past relationships.”

The redhead nods enthusiastically. “Never date anyone who constantly talks shit about their exes, lest you one day become an ex they talk shit about, even if it was completely their fault you broke up.”

“Here, here.”

“But also never date anyone who’s _too_ willing to take the fall. Dating a martyr isn’t all it’s stacked up to be.”

“Spoken like a true martyr,” Lena mocks, quirking an eyebrow.

Alex performs offense. “That’s quite an accusation, Ms. Luthor.”

“Agent Danvers, if I looked up ‘martyrdom’ in the dictionary, I would see nothing but a full-page picture of you.”

“No, you wouldn’t, because nobody uses dictionaries anymore.”

“Fine. If I Googled ‘martyrdom,’ your face would be the first through twentieth image results.”

“Pretty sure Jesus would usurp me.”

“And I’m pretty sure it’d be a toss-up.”

“What makes you so sure of that?”

Lena sits back, a challenging expression on her face. “Tell me. A prodigy like you…why Stanford?”

Alex doesn’t take the bait immediately. “As opposed to, say, MIT?”

Lena merely winks in response.

Reluctant to admit defeat, but knowing her verbal sparring partner has a point, she admits, “I needed to stay close to Kara. She was only a year behind me, and she wanted to go to NCU, so I didn’t want to be too far from her.”

“Case in point.”

“I love my sister. I would do anything for her, that doesn’t mean I’m a martyr. It just means I’m loyal, and caring.”

“Fair enough,” Lena concedes, not feeling comfortable pointing out the myriad other ways the other woman has demonstrated her martyr complex—it isn’t her place, at least not yet. “How do you like the scotch?”

Alex winces a little. “I like it but…it kinda reminds me of Maggie. It tastes like something she’d like.”

The younger woman furrows her eyebrows sympathetically. “Do you need to cry? It’s okay; I’ve already watered your shoulder, you’re welcome to return the favor.”

“No,” the agent chuckles wryly. “You see, Kara…she knows me a little too well. She knows I thrive most when I’m taking care of someone else.”

“Hence why she sent you here,” Lena connects the dots with a roll of her eyes.

“Yeah,” Alex pouts shyly. “I mean, it’s why she sent me, but it’s not why I came. I really do want to be here for you, you know? You helped Kara so much—you’ve _always_ helped Kara so much. You’ve always been such a great friend, and _person_ , and you’ve helped save the city and the planet more times than I can count, and I’ve only known you for, like, a year. You are such an amazing person, and you’re going through a tough time, and you shouldn’t have to do it alone. I want to be here for you. I know your instinct is probably to crawl into a bomb shelter and devote your life to curing cancer without ever contacting any humans other than test subjects, but I promise you, that won’t last.”

Astounded and touched, as well as extremely thrown off, Lena eventually manages to sputter out, “How—what—?”

But her companion merely shoots an amused glance and a vague hand gesture at her, stating, “When scientists feel emotions, they do this thing where they try to crush their emotions with as much logic and research and data as they can get their hands on. The year after my dad—well, the year after we _thought_ he died, my mom published four times as many papers as she ever had. She figured out more about Kryptonian DNA in that year than her and my dad had in almost a decade.” She winks, a hint of a smirk crossing her face. “Figured you wouldn’t be too much different.”

“Well, you’re a scientist, too, aren’t you?” Lena counters. “How come you’re not holed up in a lab, trying to cure Kara’s vulnerability to Kryptonite?”

With a mirthless, bitter laugh, Alex tosses back the remainder of her drink. “Because these days, I’m more a soldier than a scientist.”

“Oh.”

“Precisely.”

“So you’re sitting here, neck-deep in your ‘save the world, lose the girl’ wallowing, but you’re _still_ arguing that you’re not a martyr?”

At that point, she (affably) flips off the Luthor, who rolls her eyes and lightly shoves the agent’s strong shoulder.

“I mean it. I wanna be here for you. I know it might feel weird, because I’m Kara’s sister, or whatever, but I’m not doing this because of Kara. I’m here for you, to help you, because you deserve someone in your corner through this.” She winces a little. “I’m not making much sense, am I?”

Reddening a bit, Lena shakes her head. “No, no. You are. And I appreciate the sentiment.” With a playful raise of her eyebrows, she teases, “Besides, it’s rare to find someone who can match my whiskey drinking abilities.”

“Right back at you,” she chuckles, raising her glass briefly. “Look, all I’m trying to say is, whatever you need, I’m got you. If you need support, if you need a distraction. Even if you just want to check in on her while still keeping distance. Whatever you need, I’ll try my best to do it for you.”

She smirks, echoing Alex’s words. “Right back at you.”


	3. how could anybody have you and lose you, and not lose their mind too?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena isn't used to letting people in.
> 
> So she isn't used to how scary it can be, either.

The day after playing hooky followed by her somewhat-accidental all-nighter with her ex-girlfriend’s older sister, Lena finds herself sleep-deprived and swamped with work, but as it thoroughly distracts her from such fickle things like feelings, she welcomes it.

When she comes into her office at L-Corp, she is greeted, as expected, by the sight of Sam—hence why she carries two coffees instead of one.

“Lena!” Sam beams, accepting the coffee with a quick one-armed hug. “Hey, it feels like it’s been forever.”

“It’s only been a few days.”

“Is everything okay?” the brunette questions, inspecting her friend with a knowing maternal gaze. “Your eyes look all…”

Sighing, Lena sets down her bag, and moves to perch herself on the pristine white couch meant for drinking and these types of conversations (or, ideally, both, but Lena is just barely sobered up from her nighttime festivities, so coffee will have to do).

“We can talk about this for ten minutes, because you are my friend and I want you to know, but I-I really can’t let myself talk about it for more than ten minutes or I risk going to a dark place and I can’t afford another day of that with the amount of work I have to do.”

Sam stands, crossing the room to sit on the couch next to Lena, placing a gentle hand on her knee. “Hey, what’s going on?”

The CEO takes a deep breath, unable to look at her friend. “Kara and I broke up.”

“ _What_? How is that possible?! You two are perfect for each other! Did she—?”

“It was difficult but amicable. Nobody’s at fault or did anything wrong, and we have agreed that after a brief cooling-off period, we’ll go back to how things were all along.”

“Lena,” Sam scoffs, ducking her head in an attempt to make eye contact. “Come on, you gotta give me more than that. What happened?”

Playing uselessly with the plastic lid on her coffee cup, wiping away the smears of red lipstick, she relents. “I will tell you, but you have to promise to keep it to yourself. She isn’t ready to tell people yet, though she did give me permission to tell you. Evidently she’s quite concerned about making sure I have a support system.”

“Okay, I promise.”

“Kara is asexual,” the CEO reports matter-of-factly, as if presenting quarterly revenues at a board meeting. “And, as you know, I am very sexual, so there’s a clear incompatibility. We spent the week talking everything over and determined that we should break up. Or, rather, adapt our relationship to one which is sexless while still maintaining levels of intimacy. An ‘open romantic friendship,’ is what we’re calling it, but really, it’s basically what we had up until about a month ago when I so foolishly threw myself at her thinking she’d want me how I want her. But I’ve asked for time, first, to clear my head. She left my apartment early yesterday morning and isn’t to contact me for two weeks unless it’s an emergency.”

Sam clicks her tongue sympathetically and pulls the raven-haired woman into a hug. “I’m so sorry, Lena. You wanted this for so long.”

She melts into the embrace, but doesn’t acknowledge the words.

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“I’ve been…processing.”

“Lemme guess—drinking alone and yelling at the TV, or trying to solve world hunger?”

Lena chuckles lightly at how well her friend knows her and pulls away from the hug. “Well, actually, I had been dead set on the former, but then Alex dropped by.”

“Alex? She wasn’t on twenty-four-seven Kara duty?”

“Kara asked her to come check on me. She knew I hadn’t told you yet and wanted to make sure I was taking care of myself.”

Sam shakes her head. “Of course you weren’t.”

“Right. So Alex came over with bourbon and we ordered takeout and talked all night. It was…surprisingly easy.”

With a curious expression, the taller woman smirks slyly. “Huh.”

“What?” Lena asks, sensing a hint of accusation in her friend’s voice.

“Nothing, just…I’m glad you had someone to commiserate with.”

But her face reads differently.

“Stop _looking_ at me like that, Arias.”

“I’m not _looking_ at you, I’m just looking at you!” Sam retorts, standing from the couch. “We have work to do, don’t we? We can’t all just disappear for a whole day and expect others to pick up our slack.”

With a wink, she returns to her desk, leaving a grateful Lena with the opportunity to dive headfirst into never-ending work.

Her day continues as a blur until around eight that evening, when a text from Alex pop up on her phone screen.

‘ _Hey, you eaten yet?_ ’

She fondly recalls a memory of Kara threatening Jess to include meal reminders into Lena’s calendar, but Jess, in her loyalty, knew to be more threatened by her boss than by her boss’s happy-go-lucky best friend.

Shaking that memory out of her brain before it begets more nostalgic thoughts of Kara Danvers, she replies bluntly to Alex’s text.

‘ _What do you think, Agent Danvers?’_

Seconds later, the response comes:

‘ _I think I should pop by your office with Indian food before heading home for the night. Although I can be flexible on the cuisine._ ’

Lena beams dumbly as she reads the words. Kara _hates_ Indian food; she claims the smell lingers for days. So evidently, Alex is continuing the same pattern as their indulgence the night before, and honestly, while it never would have occurred to Lena to work through her breakup by eating all of her ex’s least favorite foods, she has to admit it isn’t the most horrible idea.

Thus, she texts back: ‘ _If you bring me samosas and vindaloo, I won’t complain._ ’

Less than an hour later, Alex Danvers is walking into the office, a large bag of food in one hand, her motorcycle helmet under the other. With a lazy knock on the door, she simpers at Lena.

“Your security guard was very confused why I was here on a social visit. He didn’t even recognize me at first. Thought I was a delivery person.”

Lena rakes her eyes over the other woman’s attire: dark skinny jeans, combat boots, and a thin pullover hoodie layered underneath a bulky leather jacket. “Yes, I believe Wyatt is more familiar with your alter ego, ‘Special Agent Dana Scully.’”

Alex snorts. “Well, if you had to pose as an FBI agent to cover for your job at an extra-governmental paramilitary organization, you would quickly realize that Dana Scully is the ultimate role model.” Crossing the room and dumping her helmet on a chair, she starts to place the food on the desk, but halts, looking up at the polished CEO with a quizzical expression. “Hold on. Lillian Luthor let you watch _The X-Files_?”

“Of course not. Lex bought the DVDs himself and we watched it in our treehouse.”

“See, that makes way more sense.”

Lena watches as her guest unloads container after container of takeout on the desk, her eyebrows raising at the sight.

“Hungry, Agent Danvers?”

“Oh,” Alex blushes. “I didn’t know if Sam would be here, too. And if Sam was here this late, Ruby would probably be here, so I thought I’d get a ton of food, just in case.”

“I sent Sam home hours ago, being the considerate boss I am. After all she’s done for me these past couple weeks, I thought she deserved to pick her daughter up from school and spend some time with her while the sun’s still out, for a change.”

“Right. Well, then I guess it’s all for us, then.”

Leaning back in her chair, Lena crosses one pale leg over the other, studying the tall woman as she sheepishly arranges their feast.

“You’re disappointed you don’t get to see Ruby, aren’t you?”

Her blush deepens. “What? No. Well—okay, fine, maybe a little. But only because she’s awesome, so. Can you blame me?”

Lena smirks, but lets it go. “She is a pretty great kid, isn’t she?” Standing from her chair, she asks, “Scotch?”

“Just one,” Alex concedes. “I can’t stay long.”

“Evil aliens to fight?”

“Something like that,” she mutters, but doesn’t elaborate. For a while, the raven-haired woman takes this as mere hesitation, but when she hands over a glass of scotch and retakes her seat behind the desk, the agent still hasn’t continued, and shows no signs of doing so. She briefly considers pressing her, but opts instead to switch topics.

“How are you doing? Long day?”

“Very,” Alex chortles, sticking a piece of chicken in her mouth. “Kara is doing the same thing she always does whenever anything in her life falls out of whack, where she devotes herself fully to being Supergirl and helping with every tiny little thing that goes wrong in the city. NCPD basically got the whole day off, and my day was hell trying to keep up with her.”

It doesn’t take her long to see through the tight, chagrined smile Lena has forced on her face and react with a wince.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be talking about her. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—we’ll talk about something else! Also, maybe don’t turn on the news, because you’ll see her. A lot. There’s a video of her helping an old lady cross the street and carrying her groceries that every channel is playing on a constant loop, and—”

“It’s okay,” Lena says, cutting off her friend’s rambling. “I’m not upset, I just…I managed to bury myself in work and forget about reality for so long that it’s a little jarring to be reminded. But it’s okay, and I should get used to hearing about her. Seeing her on TV. It’s not like I can avoid it forever.”

“I guess not.”

“So how’s she doing?”

Alex shrugs defeatedly, her eyes glinting with compassion. “I could lie and tell you she’s fine, but you know as well as I do that if she’s filling her downtime by earning Girl Scout merit badges, it means she’s a mess. She’s hurting, Lena. She misses you and she’s worried about you and when I got to my lab this morning, she was already waiting with coffee and donuts so she could interrogate me about last night and how you’re doing.”

Lena corrects her posture rather coldly, stone-faced except the withering stare she directs toward the older woman. She wants to trust Alex, she normally does trust Alex, but she also knows Alex’s loyalties lie first and foremost with Kara. “I see. And what did you tell her?”

“The abridged version,” Alex teases, seemingly amused by Lena’s attempt to intimidate her. “I told her we stayed up all night talking and drinking and eating, which she already knew, because she’s Kara and she listens to our heartbeats out of reflex, especially when she’s anxious or upset and needs to anchor herself. She was happy to hear that you’d eaten, though.”

“And when she asked what we talked about?”

“I told her the things I told you, but not the things you told me, and she understood why I did that. She did fish a little, ask leading questions, but you do know that I am actually in charge of teaching RTI to recruits at the DEO, right?”

“RTI?” Lena quirks an eyebrow.

“Resistance to Interrogation. I’m kind of a pro, which makes sense, seeing as a literal fucking psychic taught me how to resist interrogation and beat lie detectors. The only time I slipped up at all was due to a combination of being flustered by the hot woman who was interrogating me, and an extremely lucky guess made by that hot woman.”

“You failed a polygraph because you thought a woman was hot?”

“No, I actually passed the polygraph. But after they disconnected me, Lucy fucking Lane did this thing where she got all authoritative and leaned over the table and made smoldering eye contact and I got a little…rattled.”

With an appreciative hum, Lena agrees, “Lucy Lane is hot.”

“Yeah, so hot I almost ended up in Cadmus.”

Lena’s head jerks up. “ _What_?”

“Oh,” the redhead cringes shyly. “You, uh, you never heard that story?”

As they eat, Alex recounts the time that Lucy Lane had her and J’onn sent to Cadmus, only to then come around and help Kara to rescue them, only for the two DEO agents to have to live life on the lam for a period of time.

“ _That’s_ how you figured out your father’s still alive?”

“Well,” Alex murmurs, stabbing at her rice with her fork. “Still alive _then_. Who knows if he’s still alive now.”

Lena pauses, then sucks in a shaky breath when she realizes the deeper meaning behind those words. “You think my mother might have killed him.”

“Sorry,” Alex sighs, scrubbing her hands over her face. “I didn’t mean to imply—”

“She probably has,” Lena grumbles, throwing down her takeout container and picking up her scotch. “Depends how valuable he is to her. He might have managed to get away, but he’d have to keep a very low-profile life, neither an asset nor a liability to her. Otherwise…yes. She’d kill him, or have him killed. It’s just the way she is.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Why on Earth are you apologizing for my mother?” Lena snaps bitterly before she can stop herself, but after seeing Alex flinch a bit, she holds both hands in front of her chest in surrender. “I’m sorry. Really, I’m sorry, that was uncalled for. I just—I hate what my family has done to yours.”

“Your family isn’t your fault,” Alex assures her in a firm, unyielding voice. “The things _you_ have done for my family are what really matter. And you have never done anything but make us stronger. Better. Happier.”

The younger woman takes a demure bite of food, clearly not intending to answer.

“Lena,” she persists. “I mean it. You’ve saved her life. You’ve saved _my_ life. You’ve saved the whole damn world.”

“Merely returning the favor, darling,” the Luthor finally relents.

Alex’s phone vibrates, and she sighs as she checks the notification. “Look, I have to go.” She stands, draining her glass and collecting her possessions. Hesitating a bit, she looks at her fellow scientist and informs her, “Hey, maybe I shouldn’t say anything, but Kara and I might fall off the radar tomorrow. We’re not doing anything dangerous, really, just going… _out of town_. So don’t be too freaked out if it seems like we disappeared off the face of the Earth.” Then, frantically, she blurts, “So to speak!”

Furrowing her perfectly-sculpted eyebrows, Lena replies, “Okay. Thanks for the heads-up.”

“Should only be a day or two. I’ll shoot you a text when we get back.”

“I’d appreciate that.”

Alex hovers awkwardly a moment, bouncing slightly on her heels. Understanding the confusion, Lena stands, outstretching her arms to invite the taller woman into a friendly hug.

And she has to admit: Alex Danvers gives amazing hugs.

But in some hidden corner of her brain, that knowledge unnerves her, so instead, she pretends it isn’t true—or at least, she pretends she’s never noticed just how true it is.

\----

Given Alex’s warning, Lena doesn’t freak out when, early the next afternoon, the news switches from being wall-to-wall coverage of Supergirl saving the day every which way to being conspiratorial apophasis about why NCPD is suddenly responding to run-of-the-mill incidents without any alien assistance.

And when the flagrant lack of Supergirl continues into the following morning, well, Lena maybe gets a _little_ nervous, but she expects, given the secret agent’s admittedly vague timeline, that twenty-four hours without a Supergirl sighting isn’t cause for concern.

Still, she texts Alex, just to check in.

But Alex doesn’t respond.

If Lena knows one thing about Alex Danvers, she knows that Alex always checks her phone. She’s a soldier/scientist who carries the weight of the world on her shoulders, who treats looking after her little sister as if one slip-up will kill them both—Alex Danvers _never_ lets a text go unanswered for more than an hour or two, especially now that Maggie isn’t around to distract her.

So after three hours, Lena starts to worry, and—despite the ghost of Lillian’s voice in the back of her head, telling her not to appear desperate or needy—she sends Alex another text, apologizing for her insistent intrusions, but humbly requesting any proof that both sisters were alive and well.

That text, too, goes unanswered.

Which, frankly, leaves Lena almost ill with panic.

She double, triple checks every news source she can think of, looking for alien attacks in any city ever, frantically searching for sightings of Supergirl or her “unknown” redheaded counterpart in kevlar.

She calls James, only to find out that he hasn’t heard from Kara or Alex.

So, she breaks her own rules. She breaks her own rules because she’s worried everyone is dead, that everyone she cares about is dead, that something is very, very wrong; she’s almost apoplectic with anxiety, and so she breaks her own rules because she isn’t even in her right mind.

She calls Kara.

Kara doesn’t answer.

 _Kara doesn’t answer_.

If Lena knows one thing about Kara Danvers, she knows Kara _always_ answers when she calls. Sometimes, Kara answers before the first ring finishes, as if she was listening from across the city and heard Lena pull out her phone to call her.

So Lena starts to panic even more. She didn’t think it was possible to panic more, but she panics more.

Her panic blinds her, and so over the course of the next twenty-four hours ( _twenty-four hours!_ ) she calls and texts each of the Danvers sisters more times than she cares to tally, in addition to very illegally tracking their phones, only to find that they had been offline since the previous morning, which leads her to text each of them asking ‘ _Why is your phone offline?!_ ’ despite the logical part of her brain pointing out the fruitlessness of the endeavor. She intimidates everyone from James to Winn to J’onn (who, incidentally, isn’t easily intimidated, but ends up sympathetic enough to promise to help her out). She even goes so far as to spend fifteen full minutes each knocking first on Alex’s door, then on Kara’s, only to find both attempts woefully useless.

At a particularly low point, she strolls into the NCPD precinct where she knows Maggie Sawyer works and demands to see the detective; however, to her credit, it takes less than two minutes for her to intimidate a young officer into showing her to Detective Sawyer’s office.

“Lena Luthor,” Maggie chortles upon seeing the other woman in her doorjamb. “Get lost, Stewart.”

The young officer disappears with almost cartoonish urgency.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” the cop asks curtly, squinting at the other woman.

“Oh, trust me. There’s no pleasure involved in this,” Lena declares coldly, including a brisk, almost Lillian-like hand gesture. “I’m merely grasping at straws.”

Maggie tilts her head.

“Any chance you’ve heard from or about Supergirl or her sister in the last three days?”

The cop stiffens. “They’re missing?”

Lena clears her throat, buying her time to properly word her explanation without giving too much away. “They went out of town. I was told it would be a day, two at most. But now the seventy-two-hour mark has come and gone, it’s rapidly approaching four days since anyone has had contact with them. And we’re talking about the Danvers sisters here—voted most likely to kill themselves by recklessly trying to save each other and/or humanity. I’m sure you understand my concern.”

Maggie raises an eyebrow. "No news is usually good news when it comes to them. If Kara was hurt, Alex'd call you."

"Kara knows I need periodic proof of life."

She smirks. "You got it that bad for her, huh?”

Green eyes glare deep into brown ones, leaving no room for further question. “It’s my belief that you’ve lost the right to know about their personal lives. Alex may blame herself for what happened between you two, but I know better. Do you hear me?” She lowers her voice to a near snarl. “ _I know better_.” After letting that sink in a moment, she returns to her previous tone—which, granted, is still quite harsh, but not nearly as harsh as those three words. “I really, _really_ don’t care what you think. I only care what you know. Are you aware of how many people I went to with the same question I just asked before I deigned to walk into this grimy precinct? You are literally one of the last people I thought of. I’m not here because I think you know more about Alex or Kara than I do; I know for certain that’s not the case. I’m here because you have connections through law enforcement that I can only get by committing crimes, and while I’m perfectly able and willing to commit said crimes and get away with them, it would be much, much easier to simply exploit this contact. So, are you going to tell me what you know, or do you need me to prove just how easily I can infiltrate your fragile government firewall?”

Nostrils flared, Maggie snaps, “I haven’t heard anything from or about them. Now get out of my office before I take my turn yelling at you.”

“Think how much easier this could have been if you simply gave me that information upfront.”

Then Lena turns on her Louboutin heel marches out with her head held high.

Yet, despite her indisputably Luthor-esque confidence during that interaction, her anxiety is still bubbling up without control.

Unsure of what to do after almost four full days without a trace of either Danvers sister, without any confirmation that they’re okay or alive or that anyone has heard that they are okay or alive, she heads home. Just as she’s pouring a large tumbler of whiskey for herself, she hears a timid, weary knock on her door.

She answers it, and finds an obviously exhausted, rattled Alex Danvers standing on the other side, her eyes dull and bearing heavy shadows, though that burden is nothing compared the one which clearly rests on her shoulders.

“I’m so sorry, I owe you an explanation,” are Alex’s first words, before Lena can even greet her, and her voice is raspy and broken.

“I’m not sure you do,” Lena states, coolly and distantly, and the reflexive hurt is evident on the agent’s face.

“No, listen. Please. _Please_. Kara and I were on Earth-1 for a wedding, and then Nazis from Earth-X came and fucked everything up and we had to stay longer than intended and I _tried_ to call you, I swear, but my cell phone plan apparently doesn’t cover calls to alternative timelines, and also we were on Earth-1 for like a week, but I guess it’s only been, like, four days here? But either way, that’s a long time to disappear on you and I’m _sorry_ , but it wasn’t till we got back that we got all the texts and missed calls from you so I thought it would be a lot easier to come here and explain in person and—look, can I come in?”

Lena’s eyes widen and her jaw drops. She moves her mouth uselessly for a few beats before finally clearing her throat and announcing, in a steady, confident voice, “I have a whiskey that tastes like iced tea but fucks you up like prairie moonshine.”

“Sign me up.”

Her mind reeling, she fishes out the desired bottle and dispenses two generous glasses, all silently. Respectfully, Alex follows suit, obviously noticing her fellow scientist’s need to process the giant helping of reality-bending information she has been served.

As she hands her guest a very-full beverage, Lena settles in with her first and foremost question. “You and Kara are both okay, though, right?”

“Yes,” Alex says with the utmost certainty. “I mean, there was a hot sec where Kara was almost forced to donate her heart to her Nazi doppelganger from Earth-X, and I did have to do a brief stint in a concentration camp, but we both got out of it and we’re both perfectly okay. Maybe better than before, honestly, because we got to punch Nazis, and punching Nazis is…awesome. Like, even cooler and more satisfying than you’d imagine.”

Lena nods, still appearing dazed.

“So, when you say Earth-X and Earth-1…”

“Yeah. There are fifty-three Earths, technically.”

“Ah. Of course.”

“Has—?” Alex squints at her. “Has Kara not explained the multiverse to you?”

“Wait, you’re saying the multiverse is _real_? I thought it was just some quantum conspiracy theory.”

Running her fingers through her hair, the agent heads over to the couch, settling in comfortably while gesturing toward the spot next to her.

“All right, kid. Sit back and relax. Trust me; this will fuck you up more than any moonshine whiskey ever could.”

The explanation doesn’t take too long, especially given Lena’s rapt attention and conceptual familiarity.

“So on Earth-1, Kara doesn’t exist?”

“Not on Earth, at least. Either Krypton’s still intact, or her pod never made it here. We try not to find out too much about ourselves in alternate timelines; you never know the unexpected impact it could have.”

“Fascinating. So I shouldn’t ask if you know what my life looks like on any of these other Earths?”

Alex shrugs. “I’m sure you could handle it if you did ask, but unfortunately, I genuinely don’t know. What I do know is there aren’t any aliens on Earth-1, so chances are Lex never went bonkers trying to kill Superman and Lillian never started Cadmus, so chances are your life looks pretty different.”

As her chest tightens and her stomach sinks, Lena stands from the couch for no obvious reason. “I don’t know if I want to think about that.”

“Sorry.”

“No, it-it’s okay. It’s certainly nothing new, pondering what my life would be like if Lex…”

She trails off, and the redhead just eyes her, cautiously, waiting to see what will happen.

 _I'm probably better off this way,_ she thinks to herself, but doesn't have the strength to share it out loud. Instead, she diverts the conversation.

“Well, after the week you’ve had, I assume you’re starving?”

“Very,” Alex groans. “Did I mention my week also included a one-night stand with an assassin?”

The CEO sputters and falters as she attempts to unlock her phone. “I’m sorry… _what_?”

“In fairness, I didn’t _know_ she was an assassin when we slept together. I just…she was matching me drink for drink, and we were at a wedding, and everyone was happy and celebrating love, and I’d just broken off an engagement, and I was _literally_ in an alternate universe. It felt right at the time.”

“Oh, Agent Danvers,” Lena clucks. “Are you really pretending you regret it?”

Alex reddens, her eyes going wider than saucers. “W-what?”

“Such a rookie move, darling. Rebound sex is often a vital step in the breakup process, especially if you have to attend a _wedding_ in the aftermath. Don’t beat yourself up over the usual order of things.”

The agent sucks in a breath. “I fucked an assassin without knowing she was an assassin. Hell, I didn’t even remember her _name_ the next morning. I doubt I even knew her name at the time! I felt like all those gross dudes I slept with in grad school—I just fucked her till she fell asleep then snuck out the next morning before she could wake up.”

Nearly dropping her phone to the floor, Lena crooks an eyebrow at the same time her jaw drops in wonder. “You’re a top?”

“What? _No_. No, I’m—what? I didn’t say anything.”

Feeling an odd flutter in her chest, Lena presses on. “You heavily implied you topped the assassin.”

Alex’s blush is now deeper than the Mariana trench. “That doesn’t mean I _am_ a top,” she mutters. “I’m whatever my partner wants from me.”

“So you’re a switch,” Lena hums, studying her for a moment before adding, “I’m not judging, and I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I find it interesting, is all. I pegged Maggie as a strict top.”

Alex grins, almost cockily, but at the very least with a definite air of pride behind it. “Well, I pegged Maggie, so.”

And Lena chokes a bit on the air.

“Sorry,” the agent grimaces. “Was that too much information?”

“No, no, of course not. I’m the one who started it, it’s just—” Then she cuts herself off, unsure of where she intended to go with that sentence, a bit distracted by the images and implications flooding her mind. To be safe, she opts to change directions completely. “It’s just that, speaking of Maggie, there’s something I should tell you.”

“Oh my God. What did you do?”

“I should buy you food,” Lena sighs, returning to her phone. “Is it weird to get Mexican twice in the same week?”

“Kara literally has the same meal every day. Sometimes twice a day. What do you have to tell me about Maggie?”

Green eyes roll somewhat petulantly. “So I threatened her a _little_ bit. It’s fine. I’m sure she’s had worse.”

“ _Why_ on Earth would you threaten my ex-girlfriend?”

“I’d already threatened most of CatCo’s staff and a not-insignificant number of DEO agents. I wanted to mix it up a little.”

“Don’t joke about this,” Alex whines. “What did you say to her?”

“The normal things you say to a friend’s ex-girlfriend when you think your friend is in mortal peril, I suppose,” Lena attempts bashfully, but the agent groans, knowing it can’t be good.

“Exactly how ruthless were you?”

After successfully ordering enough food that Alex might forgive her, Lena demurely sits on the couch and lays out the unvarnished account of her interaction with Maggie Sawyer, keeping her voice level and smooth even as the agent’s eyes widen and jaw drops with every sentence.

When the story reaches its dramatic end, Alex buries her face in her calloused hands. “Oh God. Oh my _God_ , why did you do that?”

“You and Kara were nowhere to be found. Your phones were offline, nobody had seen or heard from you in days. I suspected the worst. I know you’re no stranger to feeling like people you care about are in danger and you’re powerless to help or protect them, so I know you’re no stranger to the irrational behavior that feeling can cause,” Lena deadpans, her jaw set tightly.

“But why were you so mean to her? What does that even mean, you ‘ _know better_ ’?”

Lena finds herself reluctant to answer that question, so she hesitates—clearing of her throat, straightening her posture, uncrossing and re-crossing her legs.

She hesitates because she can easily explain what she meant by that: she never cared for Maggie. She’d yet to put her finger on exactly _why_ she didn’t like the woman, who seemed perfectly nice and intelligent and (at least in most respects) a suitable partner for Alex. Maggie clearly cared dearly for Alex, clearly treated her well and listened to her and adapted for her until she couldn’t anymore, and she was honest and kind and respectful, but something about the detective always _bothered_ Lena, in particular something about the detective’s relationship with Alex, and she’d never quite figured out what it was.

So she hesitates because if she confesses to never liking Maggie much, she’ll be forced to explain _why_ , and she can’t do that.

Instead, she turns to the scandalized woman next to her, puts on her best poker face, and lies through her teeth.

“Frankly, I don’t think it’s fair how she’s treated you post-breakup. Refusing to see you, refusing to even try to be friends—it doesn’t seem kind. Perhaps I’m projecting, given my situation with Kara, but as I mentioned, I was a little out-of-sorts. If you’d like, I can send her a note, maybe a bottle of scotch, to apologize.”

But Alex doesn’t reply. She studies Lena, her narrowed eyes searching every inch of her pale face, until something flashes across her own. Some realization dawns upon her, clear as day, but whatever it is, she doesn’t enlighten the Luthor.

“I wouldn’t feel obligated if I were you. If it makes you feel any better, she did text me to check in, although it was pretty impersonal and…nonspecific.”

“That doesn’t make me feel better,” Lena scoffs before she can stop herself. “I come storming into her office and tell her nobody’s heard from you in over three days, and her response is to send a single text message to ‘check in’? It’s barely been three weeks since you two broke up, doesn’t she care at all?”

 _God_ , when will she learn to bite her tongue?

The look on Alex’s face is heartbreaking. She looks like a four-year-old child who can’t find her mom in the grocery store. Lost, broken, downtrodden, simultaneously empty and full of sorrow and fear.

“Oh, Alex,” Lena breathes, placing a rueful, concerned hand on the agent’s shoulder. “I didn’t mean—of _course_ she cares about you. People just respond to fear differently. My response was to frantically threaten everyone I could think of and hack your phones. Maggie’s response was to stay distant, shut down, put up walls. It’s a response I know well.”

“Yeah,” Alex mutters. “That’s pretty much Maggie’s M.O.”

“I didn’t mean to imply she doesn’t care.”

“I know. I just—” She runs a hand through her hair. “I feel guilty.”

“Because of the assassin?”

“Because of _everything_.” Then she shakes her head, takes a hearty sip of whiskey, and declares, “But you know what? I don’t really wanna talk about any of that. Let’s just leave it at this: I’m sorry we disappeared and worried you, and really, don’t feel bad about the aftermath. Kara and I will handle it.”

“Perhaps I should apologize to some of your agents.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Alex blows a raspberry and waves the words away with her hand. “Trust me, it’s nothing they’re not used to. I’ve threatened each and every one of them more times than anyone can count; it’s pretty run-of-the-mill for my agents to get threatened when Kara is or could be in danger.”

Lena bites her lip. “She’s not, though, right?”

Alex shakes her head, smirking. “A little tired. I put her under a yellow sun lamp for an hour then sent her home to rest up, while she sent me here to check on you. By the way, while we were at the DEO, I heard you managed to hack Winn’s firewall and tried to locate my subdermal tracker?”

“I’m not to be underestimated, Agent Danvers.”

“Apparently not.”

“Now, if you really want to make it up to me that you disappeared without a trace, you’ll explain to me how one travels from one Earth to another.”

“Really?” Alex scoffs with raised eyebrows. “Neither of us has slept in days and you want to get into complicated quantum physics?”

“Food should be here in twenty minutes.”

“You’re gonna be the death of me.”

Despite her teasing, the older Danvers patiently answers all Lena’s questions as they devour their takeout, until it becomes painfully evident that she is fighting to keep her eyes open.

“Take the guest room,” Lena says without prompting, and she realizes a bit too late that she might have cut Alex off mid-sentence in her haste to take care of her. “Please. You’re clearly far too tired to make it home safely, so I insist you stay here.”

Alex hesitates, and Lena groans.

“If sheer exhaustion isn’t enough to persuade you, let me sweeten the deal with the promise of a luxurious shower, comfy pajamas, and the best damn mattress you’ve ever slept on.”

“Okay, fine,” Alex concedes. “But…I have to call Kara. Let her know. She’ll worry if she doesn’t hear from me.”

Lena sucks in a breath. “Of course. I’ll get everything set for you, you take your time.”

She leaves the room, determined not to eavesdrop. In fact, she takes more time than necessary to turn down the bed in the guest room, to lay out more than a few options for sleeping attire (including several articles of clothing that Kara had left behind at the penthouse, and which Lena had not set eyes on in days, but which she figures will fit the taller, lanky agent a little better than any of Lena’s own clothes will), and properly adorn the bathroom with her finest soaps and towels.

(Really, if she’s being honest with herself, there’s some unknown force compelling her to do these things. Sure, she’s buying time to give Alex privacy, but she could have also opted to sit quietly in the guest room and scroll through her phone. There’s no real need for her to dress the room to the nines in anticipation of hosting her friend for the night, but nonetheless, she wants to make sure the older woman is set up for the most relaxing, perfect night anyone could imagine. Because she’s been through a lot, and Lena’s trying to be nice.)

Despite her extensive attempts to buy time, when Lena finally makes her way down the hall back into the living room, she overhears part of the Danvers sisters’ phone call.

“Please don’t, okay? I’ll ask her, but even if she says no, that doesn’t mean you should—” Alex’s argument is cut off for a few seconds before she resumes with a heavy sigh. “I know, Kara, I know. But it’ll be weirder if you cancel the whole thing than if she’s not there.” Another pause. “No—no. If Sam doesn’t wanna come then she doesn’t have to come.” A shorter pause. “If nothing else, it’s M’yrnn’s first Earth holiday. Come on, you can only imagine the sad excuse for Christmas J’onn will cook up without our help.” She tries to keep talking, but sputters a bit, ostensibly over Kara’s simultaneous objections. “Hey. I’m serious. I’m doing the holidays without Maggie, you can survive without Lena. I will ask her, but you have to stick to the rules. I know it’s hard, but you got me. You _both_ got me, okay? I’m trying to take care of you both, so let me do that.”

Lena is tempted to make her presence known at that point, if for no other reason than to thank Alex, but she instead chooses to lurk further in the shadows, unsure of how to approach the fact that she’s been shamelessly listening in on a private conversation for this long.

“Kara.” Alex says forcefully, almost shouting, and it sounds like she’s interrupting a characteristic Kara Danvers rambling, anxious diatribe. “She’s okay. I promise you, she’s okay. You can relax. I wouldn’t lie to you about this. Get some sleep, okay? You need to rest.”

Another beat.

“ _Kara_.” Alex sounds increasingly exasperated, now. “If she were that upset with us, would I be sleeping in her goddamn guest room tonight?”

A shorter beat.

“I’ll tell you tomorrow. I promise. But for now, we both need to catch up on about a year’s worth of sleep. Promise me you’ll leave the minor crimes and kittens caught in trees to the local authorities, at least until tomorrow afternoon?” Alex chuckles affectionately. “Thank you. I appreciate it…Yeah, I love you too, you big softy. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Lena hears the dull sound of Alex’s phone dropping onto the leather cushion, followed by her voice:

“All right, Luthor, you can stop pretending you’re not listening, now.”

Her face heating up, Lena peeks out from around the corner. “How’d you know?”

“I’m an alien-hunting, Nazi-punching, space-travelling, omniscient secret agent, that’s how,” Alex teases smugly before gesturing to the floor next to Lena. “Also, your shadow, right there.”

Green eyes roll playfully. “Is she…is she okay?”

“Yeah,” Alex affirms, sounding tired beyond her years. “She’s good. Better now that she knows you’re safe and not upset with her.”

Lena bites her lip, approaching the couch with caution. “She’s worried about the holiday party? She wants to cancel it?”

Alex sighs, scrubbing her forehead with the heels of her hands. “She’s worried people will feel like they’re taking sides, or doing the wrong thing, or—I don’t know. She’s overanalyzing everything because she misses you and wants you there.”

The breath swiftly leaves Lena’s lungs. “She wants me there?”

“Of course she does. She wants you everywhere.”

A brief pause, and then:

“Oh, fuck. I’m sorry. I’m so bad at this.”

“No,” Lena breathes a laugh through her nose. “No, you’re not. It’s comforting, to know that I haven’t completely ruined things with her.”

“You could never,” Alex assures her. “No more than she could ever ruin things with you.”

Lena nods solemnly. “I’ll think about the party, okay?”

Alex stands from the couch, cupping Lena’s shoulder with a warm, kind hand. “Listen, I don’t want you to feel pressured, okay? You take your time, take your space, as you need it, and let me worry about how it affects Kara. It’s not gonna do you any good getting over your attraction if you’re bending over backwards trying to spare her feelings.”

With a faint pout, the businesswoman retorts, “And you thought you were bad at this.”

“I’m learning. I’m a pretty quick learner when it comes to taking care of people; I’m good at taking care of people.”

And green eyes meet brown for a silent moment, until Lena feels something spark deep in her chest, something unidentified but immediately unwelcome, so she abruptly pulls herself away from the redhead’s lingering touch.

“Except yourself, evidently,” she covers before she’s questioned, quirking an eyebrow and gesturing toward the hallway. “Go. Go sleep. I don’t know if you wanna shower now or in the morning, but I put some towels and soap in there for you, so. Yeah. Um. It’s all yours. Let me know if you need anything else.”

“I’m sure I’ll be fine. You’ll find I’m pretty low maintenance.”

Alex starts to walk away, but she looks back with a meaningful gaze and adds, with the faintest of tremors in her voice, “Thank you, Lena.”

“It’s no trouble,” she replies swiftly.

Her jaw tightening, Alex studies her friend’s pale face, as if trying to look through it to read her thoughts. She appears to understand that Lena’s brisk dismissal was intentional, was meant to signal that the latter woman isn’t up for anymore emotions or sharing at the moment, that she’d rather just call it a night, shove the last few days into the tiniest little box she can and hide it deep, deep in the recesses of her mind, hopefully never to be seen again.

So they hug, somewhat awkwardly, and retreat to their respective rooms.

Once in the comfort of her bed, however, Lena finds herself unable to relax, despite the days of deprivation, broken up only by desperate power naps. Her mind reeling, she acts on impulse and does the first thing that occurs to her that might make her feel better, might make her mind feel less complicated.

She calls Sam.

It isn’t until Sam answers, her voice rough and weary, that Lena remembers it’s past midnight.

“Lena?” Sam rumbles. “Is everything okay?”

“Yes,” Lena groans. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you. I didn’t notice the time and—I’m sorry. Forget it, we can talk in the morning.”

“No, it’s okay,” Sam assures her, and Lena hears the rustle of sheets and pillows over the phone as her friend rearranges herself on the bed. “What’s up?”

“Are you sure?”

“Hon, come on. I’m not gonna let you get away with calling me in the middle of the night and pretending it was an accident. Especially not after you’ve been freaking out about Kara and Alex for the past few days.” A slight hesitation. “Are they okay?”

“Yeah,” Lena chuckles. “They’re back. Long story, I’ll tell you some other time, but they’re safe and well and…and I overreacted.”

Sam scoffs, ever so slightly. “Well, yeah. I mean, I wasn’t gonna say it or anything, but you know those two can take care of themselves. And they have Supergirl watching over them even more closely than she watches over you.”

“Right,” she replies, reprimanding herself for just how little thought she put into this phone call. How is Sam supposed to help Lena parse her panic when she didn’t even know the whole story of _why_ Lena worries so much about the Danvers sisters? “I know all that, logically, but in practice I just…before Alex left she told me not to freak out, but I—”

“Oh, babe. I’ll smack her for that next time I see her. She should know better; telling someone not to freak out is a guarantee that they’ll freak out. It's like telling someone to calm down, it only upsets them more.”

Lena titters with nervous laughter, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Still, my reaction was hardly proportionate. I yelled at Maggie. Might have threatened her a bit.”

“You— _what_?”

“It was misdirected anger, I know that now. I just—I was worried about them, and—”

And in that statement, Lena uncovers a loaded, ominous truth.

 _Them_.

Her concern was not solely about Kara’s safety, but about Alex’s, as well. She always worried, somewhat, about Alex’s safety, but only because the Danvers sisters have the kind of relationship where if one gets hurt, the other throws herself headfirst into the line of fire, whether to prevent further harm, or just because seeing her sister hurt has caused her to lose her mind and sacrifice herself for the hell of it.

No, it’s not out of the norm for Lena to hope Alex Danvers stays safe, out of danger. Except, usually, she contextualizes those hopes among concern for Kara: ‘ _I hope Alex stays safe so Kara stays safe_ ,’ or ‘ _I hope Alex stays safe so Kara doesn’t do anything stupid_ ,’ or ‘ _I hope Alex stays safe, because if she ends up hurt, it might mean that Kara is or could have gotten hurt_.’

This time, Lena was worried about both of them. She wasn’t just worried about Alex in connection to Kara’s safety—she was worried about Alex, full stop.

Which she finds a little unsettling. Terrifying, even.

Because she’s an anxiety-prone, abandonment-issue-ridden control freak, so when, how, _why_ on Earth did she ever let herself become this close to two people who almost die on a daily basis?

Time and space.

Time and space.

She needs time and space, she needs time and space to organize her little boxes, to seal them shut and burn them to ash in her mind, to separate herself from the anguish caused by being close to people, to stop setting herself up for disaster by allowing herself to care this much about things she can control so little.

“Lena?”

Sam’s voice is gentle, calming, but clearly layered with trepidation.

“Yes, I'm here. Just,” Lena chokes out. “I’m just so tired. It’s been a long night. Long week. Sorry to have woken you up.”

“Call me anytime for any reason. That’s what friends are for.”

 _Friends_.

Her life was so much simpler before she succumbed to the pressure and let people into it. What had happened to her? What had happened to her discipline, her self-preservation? Her life was so much simpler before, less chaotic, less stressful, before she let people in. Back when it was just her and her little boxes.

She needs to regroup. Get her priorities straight.

Time.

Space.

Little boxes.

Lena doesn’t need friends.

She just needs time, space, and little boxes.

After hanging up with Sam, she falls asleep to the lullaby of her new mantra.

Time.

Space.

Little boxes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Full disclosure I actually love Maggie, but for purposes of this story, Lena doesn't. It just felt right that way, idk.
> 
> As you can probably tell by the ending, we got some more angst heading our way, but never fear! The AgentCorp banter will return.


	4. don't take this the wrong way, but you're doing this the wrong way

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is mostly just alternating angst and action, but I also do believe it is a necessary stepping stone in Lena's mindset, so I hope you enjoy it regardless <3

Over the next few days, Lena keeps her distance from the Danvers sisters. She abides by her renewed philosophy on life: _time, space, little boxes_.

Alex continues reaching out, but Lena tactfully evades actually seeing her. She politely turns down offers and invitations, dismisses concerns, and excuses her behavior with assurances that she’s merely business at work.

Which isn’t even a lie, because she throws herself into work like never before.

Lena is successful in her endeavors to avoid the sisters until the night of their holiday party—which she declines to attend, but fate has different plans for her, evidently, because that night, someone (someone who she’s _sure_ is Morgan Edge) sets fire to an L-Corp development site.

She hears it from Alex, when the older woman calls her and Lena, fearing the worst, picks up, only to instead be briefed on the situation.

“We don’t think you’re being targeted, but just in case, we want to assign you protection.”

“I don’t need protection from that solipsistic douchecanoe. He’s tried to kill me before, let him try again.”

“Lena,” Alex exhales, and Lena can almost hear her internal battle over the phone. “It’s not Morgan Edge.”

“Of course it is. He’s only putting the symbol other places to cover his tracks and divert suspicion. I’m sure—”

“The symbol is Kryptonian.”

The CEO’s anger transforms into fear in the blink of an eye. “Is she in danger? Is someone trying to hurt her?”

“We don’t know,” Alex confesses, desperation clear in her voice. “But if they are, then it might not be an accident that the first symbol appeared on L-Corp land. If someone figured out your connection to her, you need protection.”

Rolling her eyes, Lena realizes that this isn’t a conversation, but a warning. “So exactly how many jackbooted secret agents are going to be following me around in order to assure Kara and the DEO that I’m safe?”

“None, actually. It’s gonna be James.”

She can’t help the groan that rips from her throat.

“Look, I’m not a fan of him running around going all vigilante justice either, but it’s not just the muscles and the gauntlets that come in handy. He has a signal watch, so if you’re in danger, Supergirl will know a lot quicker than if it were just a DEO agent on comms protecting you.”

“Can’t you just give _me_ a signal watch? Then I won’t have to spend any more time than necessary with James Olsen and his savior complex.”

“We are going to give you a signal watch. You’ll find it in the top drawer of Jess’s desk within the hour. But that signal watch won’t come in much handy if you’re incapacitated before you can press it. I'd much rather hedge our bets than risk your safety. Please, _please_ just trust us. It should only take a couple days for us to figure this out, then you can go back to your Guardian-less life.”

“Fine,” Lena barks, but then she sits up a bit straighter and muses, “The top drawer of Jess’s desk is locked.”

“Oh, no,” Alex snarks flatly, the sarcasm so thick you’d need an axe to cut through it. “How ever will I get past a simple lock?”

“I’m upgrading my security tomorrow,” she grumbles.

“For the record, Luthor,” the agent continues with an audible smirk. “We all have savior complexes. Cut James some slack.”

“ _For the record_ , Agent Danvers,” Lena replies coolly, her voice floating through the air like a soft breeze, if that soft breeze were also stubbornly unwavering in its theories. “Just because the symbol is Kryptonian doesn’t mean Morgan Edge isn’t _also_ trying to kill me.”

\----

Morgan Edge does try to kill her.

Of course, he doesn’t succeed—his hitman is easily thwarted by Guardian, who then insists on calling the DEO to let them know about what happened.

“James, at this point, attempts on my life are _so_ passé. They’re hardly newsworthy when they occur this frequently.”

But _no_. Instead, Lena finds herself in the DEO’s med bay, being unnecessarily examined by Dr. Alex Danvers.

“This is silly, and you know it,” Lena snaps, her lips pursed as Alex scrutinizes every part of her. “I have a bruise on my leg from James pushing me out of the line of fire, and that’s the extent of it. You’re being ridiculous.”

Alex grins, which boils Lena’s blood even further.

“What’s funny?”

“Nothing,” the agent mutters, before meeting green eyes with a jovial glance. “It’s just you’re acting _exactly_ like I do every time I end up in the med bay.”

“At this point, assassination attempts are routine for me,” Lena hums. “If I made a fuss of it every time someone tries to kill me, I’d never get anything else done.”

Alex’s smile merely widens as she shoves a vial of blood into a machine and pulls off her gloves. “The first time someone tried to kill me, I was…sixteen.”

Lena raises a curious, almost mocking eyebrow. “Wow. You’re a prodigy.”

“Yeah, it was the local sheriff. Kara and I found out he murdered our friend, so he tried to kill us. Twice, actually. First he tried to run us off the road, then he isolated me and tried to shoot me. So I guess it was the first and second time someone tried to kill me.”

The billionaire’s jaw drops.

“S’also the first and second times Kara saved my life,” Alex adds quietly, almost as an afterthought, as she clicks through some things on her computer. “Your bloodwork is clear.”

“Obviously,” Lena scoffs, before tilting her head inquisitively at the agent as she crosses her arms smoothly. “So how many times have people tried to kill you?”

Alex lets out a loud bark of laughter that causes Lena to jump, a bit. “You mean in general, or specific, planned out attempts? Because Jesus, there aren’t enough numbers to count the former.”

Chuckling softly, Lena concedes, “I don’t mean every time some bad guy has shot in your direction. You have a job to do, you don’t have days to spare trying to tally up those situations.”

The agent shrugs. “I mean, there was a considerable cooling-off period between the sheriff trying to kill me and me joining the DEO. But…in the last four years since I entered the field? I’d say there have been at least two dozen coordinated attempts on my life.”

After a thoughtful hum, Lena smiles affectionately at her. “Wow. Impressive.”

“Luckily most of them happened before Kara knew I’m DEO, otherwise Supergirl would have made a much earlier appearance.”

“Excuse me?”

Alex narrows her eyes at the younger woman. “The flight to Geneva? Her first act as Supergirl, sh-she never told you why she saved that plane?”

“You were _on_ that plane?”

Muscles jump in her neck, and she cracks it in a futile attempt to rid herself of obvious tension. “There were three DEO agents on that plane. Just to kill us, they were willing to kill the other 200-plus people on board.”

Restlessly, she kicks the toe of her boot into the ground for no particular reason, training her eyes on the sight.

“Other than Rick Malverne, that’s the closest I’ve ever come.”

Lena sniffs, determined to keep her composure, and she clears her throat briskly before she replies, “Morgan Edge is the closest I’ve ever come. When I woke up on that cargo plane…I thought nobody could save me. So I’m sure you understand why I’m unwilling to sell him short.”

“I do,” comes Alex’s heartfelt admission. “But I wish you’d let us handle it. At least if we’re the ones who do the dirty work, we can get away with it easier.”

Perfectly manicured eyebrows quirk in response. “Are implying I couldn’t get away with it?”

“Oh, of course not. I know you could get away with it; it’s just we can get away with it easier.” The agent’s eyes dart around the room, checking personnel, before she leans in and admits, “You remember a couple years ago? When Maxwell Lord went dark for a while?”

Lena suddenly feels a prickling under her skin. “That was _you_?”

Alex shrugs in faux-innocence. “Maybe. All I know is he threatened to expose Supergirl’s identity, and then suddenly he disappeared for a few weeks. Could’ve been a coincidence.”

“I’m sure it was,” Lena teases, playing along.

“In any case,” the redhead defers. “You are medically cleared to enjoy the rest of your Christmas Eve. Big plans?”

“Oh, yes, of course,” she remarks sarcastically, frowning as she attempts to roll her sleeve down over the cotton ball taped to the inside of her elbow. “I’ll be attending the most lavish of balls, filled to the brim with the most elegantly-dressed members of high society, all of whom I love so very dearly, and we shall eat, drink, and be merry.”

“So you’re gonna go back to your office and bury yourself so deep in your work that you won’t even notice when the sun comes up on Christmas morning?”

“Essentially. There may also be scotch involved.”

“Agent Danvers.”

The voice comes before the person does, and Lena sees a compact woman with short, dark hair enter the room, decked out in DEO tactical gear and holding a tablet, her eyes flitting back and forth between the agent and the businesswoman.

“It’s okay, Vasquez. You got something?”

“Yes, ma’am. Director Jones requests you be the one to alert Supergirl of…” Her eyes track over toward Lena, and she obviously reconsiders her words. “Recent developments.”

And Lena thought _she_ knew how to hire employees who prioritize discretion.

With a heavy sigh, Alex shoots an apologetic look toward her friend. “I guess you’re not the only one who’ll be working all night.” Then, with a cautionary finger pointed in her direction: “Do _not_ leave this room until James comes to get you. I’m serious. I _will_ know.”

“I promise,” Lena agrees begrudgingly.

Nodding, the two agents leave the room, and though she strains her hearing, the only words she hears are ‘ _All right,_ _Vasquez, sitrep?'_ before they march out of earshot.

She’s tempted to leave despite her direct warning, but ultimately, decides it will be more trouble than it’s worth to skip out on the DEO escort. If she skips out, then the Danvers sisters will worry about her, and that’s not what she needs. She doesn’t need them calling incessantly, checking in on her. She needs time, space, and little boxes.

So she waits for James.

Because if she surrenders to their instincts to protect her, at least she doesn’t have to interact with them as much. If she acquiesces, they won’t have to make their case, so she won’t have to talk to them.

Time, space, little boxes.

Yeah, that lasts for only a few more hours.

Because after Lena returns to CatCo, superfluously guarded by James, it’s only a few hours until a battle breaks out in the sky between Supergirl and the so-called ‘Worldkiller,’ whose sense of justice is almost as warped as her sense of self-importance, but who clearly holds more power than anyone would have suspected.

Because only a few hours after Lena leaves the DEO, she watches the most important person in her life bleed for the very first time.

She’s never seen Kara bleed before, and it pains her more than she could ever imagine. It’s the worst thing she’s ever experienced, watching Kara bleed. Watching Kara fall from the sky, watching her—when Lena sees Supergirl’s limp, bleeding body fall to the pavement, create a crater in the sidewalk, she thinks nothing could ever hurt more, nothing could ever feel worse.

Until she sees Alex, running at full speed, hopping over chunks of cement, crawling through cracked asphalt, trying desperately to reach her sister.

 _Her sister_.

God, if seeing Kara like this hurts Lena, she can only imagine how much it hurts Alex.

Lena knows she’s gone into shock, because she can’t remember a lot of what happened. She and James were in their office at CatCo, then they ran outside to check on Kara, then she fell from the sky, then Alex came, and now…James has his arms wrapped firmly around Lena’s torso, pressing her body against his, and she realizes she’s fighting him, she’s screaming and wailing and futilely ramming her fists and kicking her legs against his tree trunk of a body. Her throat is dry, her screams coming out as hoarse nothingness, her face tracked with tears as she fights against his unyielding hold.

“ _LET ME GO!”_ sobs a voice that sounds like hers, but worse—harsher, sadder, _devastated_.

“There’s nothing you can do right now, Lena!” James hisses back, gruff but quiet, trying not to draw too much attention, tightening his death-grip even further to quell her thrashing. “You’ll only put yourself in danger if you run to them now. They can’t lose you, you hear me? They can’t lose you.”

“She needs me!” Lena cries, still struggling, and somehow he manages to flip her in his grasp, shoving her face into his chest to stifle her continued howling. “She _needs_ me, James, let me _GO_!”

But he wouldn’t. She screams and pounds and fights against his hold but it just gets stronger and stronger until she has no choice but to relax into it, to surrender to it just as she surrendered to her time, her space, and her little boxes.

God, how much differently she would do things if she could.

It was mere hours ago that she was at the DEO, and she’d gone out of her way to avoid Kara, to keep her distance from Alex.

She wishes now she’d been more forthcoming.

Because if this is goodbye…

\----

Honestly, she doesn’t remember how or when she gets to the DEO. There’s a paneled van involved, and at least two reticent, black-clad agents, but other than that? It’s all a blur.

When she gets to the DEO, however, she is jerked out of her shock reaction by a sight that upsets her more than she thought it would: Alex Danvers arguing animatedly with Mon-El. She can’t hear what they’re saying, but Mon-El keeps trying to reach out and grab her shoulder in comfort, or reassurance, or who knows, because Alex pulls away with enough force to possibly dislocate her own joints every time he extends his hand, responding with a clenched jaw and admonishing hand gestures.

That is, until she hears Mon-El’s voice cut clean through across the cavernous atrium of the city base, screaming, “ _Just_ _trust me_ , _Alex_!”

Followed by Alex’s immediate, equally loud reply: “ _Why should I_?”

Lena squints, trying desperately to read lips, and maybe she imagines it, but she swears she sees Mon-El assert, forcefully, _“Because she needs to live. She has to live, she will live.”_

But she knows she doesn’t imagine it when she sees Alex spit out, “ _Fine_ ” and then storm out of the room.

So Lena bolts up the stairs, distantly recognizing but ignoring James’s objections, running as fast as her stilettos can take her toward the direction Alex went. Eventually, she finds the unflappable agent curled up in a corner, nearly hyperventilating. Her knees are bent, her elbows resting on them, her hands clutching her head, pulling at her hair.

“Alex…?” she begins tentatively.

“I just had to intubate my little sister.”

Slowly, as if approaching a skittish deer, Lena closes the distance between them and crouches down next to her. “Yeah. You did.”

A slightly-unhinged-sounding titter escapes her throat as she combs her fingers through her own auburn hair. “I told her to go and fight like a Kryptonian, like a cold, soulless Kryptonian, and then I had to intubate her.”

Her eyes are unfocused, dazed. She doesn’t blink for a long period of time, then she blinks too many times in a row, then she doesn’t blink again, then she closes her eyes.

“Now she’s half-dead and I have to rely on _Mon-El_ and his future medicine to save her life. I’m not—I _can’t_ —powerless. I’m completely powerless.” She shakes her head. “I had a bad, bad feeling about this fight. I knew—and I did it wrong. I made her take the wrong approach because I-I was selfish, and I was so afraid of losing her, so certain I would lose her, that I let her lose her way. I let her lose her upper hand, the thing that makes her stronger, better. I— _fuck_.”

As Alex scrubs her face with her hands, bringing her knees impossibly closer to her torso, Lena—in a rather undignified, indecorous manner—shifts her weight backward and, for lack of a better word, plops down to sit on the floor. The dirty, grimy, who-knows-when-an-underpaid-government-employee-last-mopped-it floor. Once seated, she shuffles around so her back is against the wall, eyes trained forward, only able to see her friend out of her peripheral vision.

“You know you’re the only reason she’s made it this far, right?”

Out of the corner of her eye, Lena swears she can see Alex’s lip quivering.

“I know you blame yourself for the fact that she’s Supergirl. You’ve told me as much plenty of times. But if you’re going to blame yourself for Supergirl, you also have to give yourself credit for Kara Danvers.”

Sensing movement next to her, Lena turns her head to see dark brown eyes swimming with unshed tears, angled slightly toward the other woman. With all the soul she can muster given her exhaustion and the remnants of shock, the CEO channels her compassion, her affection, her care into her face, into her gaze, determined to convey her feelings toward the older Danvers.

“If she didn’t have you, she’d have no one. No one to teach her how to be human, how to care. How to hug people without hurting them. Clark would have dumped her off and she’d become a science experiment. She wouldn’t have had anyone looking out for her, protecting her. She wouldn’t have had anyone to truly care about, or to truly care about her.”

In a brave moment, Lena reaches out and places her hand tenderly on the agent’s bicep.

“Alex, without you, she’d be a sad, lost girl from a dead planet. You gave her something to live for, something to keep her going. You’ve _always_ done that, every step of the way. And I promise you, there are more steps to come.”

But Alex is shaking her head feverishly.

“ _No_ ,” she growls. “You can’t promise that. You can’t promise me that, so don’t even—”

She cuts herself off with an unfettered sob, ripped deep from her throat, a keening kind of sound Lena has never, _ever_ heard from the woman.

And despite herself, despite her mantra, she feels compelled by some extrinsic force to comfort her, to further entrench herself in this situation.

“What did you get her for Christmas?” she asks softly.

“A bunch of pins and stickers and socks and stuff with the asexual pride colors,” Alex sniffs, then falls into loose chuckles. “And skydiving lessons.”

“Skydiving lessons?”

“I thought if the ace stuff felt too overwhelming for her, then it would be a funny joke to cheer her back up.”

They both allow themselves to smile, at that. “She’s gonna love that,” Lena hums.

“What did you get her?” Alex asks, choosing not to dwell on thoughts of whether or not Kara will ever get the chance to love her gift.

“Before we…” Lena huffs a little as she trails off, then resets herself with a single, abrupt shake of her head. “She made me promise I wouldn’t spend more than thirty dollars on her. Which is absurd, frankly. So I got her onesie pajamas with a hood and a tail that make you look like a friendly dinosaur.”

Alex’s body vibrates with laughter. “My _God._ She’ll shriek so loud she’ll break windows.” Rolling her head slightly more toward her companion, she continues, “Wanna know what she got you?”

She pouts. “No. I’d rather be surprised when she gives it to me herself.” After a short pause, she squeezes Alex’s arm. “Which she will.”

“Pfft,” the redhead scoffs, running her fingers once again through her hair, which was already looking puffy from the extra attention. “Provided we can trust _Mon-El_.”

“Thank goodness I’m not the only one who detests that man,” Lena groans.

“I have to catch her,” Alex declares, her voice flat and scientific. “I have to catch Reign. Whoever the hell she is. I have to find her, find her weakness. I have to stop her, or at least find out what Supergirl can do to stop her next time.”

The CEO is tempted to tease her, to joke about how she conceded there might be a ‘next time,’ but she decides not to risk it. Instead, she herself concedes, looking deep into Alex’s eyes and professing, “If anyone can find her, if anyone can figure out how to stop her, it’s you.”

Her display of vulnerability, however, is met with a wry, self-deprecating chuckle and the reply: “I wouldn’t be so sure of that, if I were you.”

“Agent Danvers,” Lena asserts. “After all I have been through in my life, I have complete and utter faith, _trust_ , in very, very few people. Two people, if you wish to be exact. One of them, for obvious reasons, is Kara. The other, I dare to announce, is you. So get your shit together and prove me right.”

(Look, she’s a Luthor. She doesn’t have a lot of experience giving good pep talks.)

Luckily, Alex responds with a smirk. “Why, yes ma’am, of course.”

“For what it’s worth,” Lena sighs, scrunching her eyebrows together as she notices a peculiar stain on the floor a few feet in front of her, training her eyes on it just to be safe from potentially meeting Alex’s askance glance. “I apologize for having been…standoffish, in the past few days. I’m merely protecting myself.”

“From caring?” the agent snorts dryly.

“Something to that effect,” she murmurs.

“Well, I get it. Caring about Kara, worrying about her—it’s _exhausting_. Take it from the expert.”

Lena bites her lip, weighing her options. She knows how she _wants_ to respond; she wants to admit to her ex-girlfriend’s sister that her excruciating concern isn’t just about Kara—it’s about Alex, as well. Her heart was torn out from her chest by seeing Kara fall from the sky, but then once again, when she saw her sister’s reaction to it.

She wants to tell Alex that. To tell her that her anxiety for Alex’s wellbeing no longer manifests by an extension of Kara, but as its own, individual panic. Lena worries about the redheaded agent, even though doing so is, realistically, almost as silly as worrying about Kara. While she isn’t a bulletproof alien with superstrength, she does have a bulletproof alien with superstrength who constantly watches her or listens to her heartbeat to make sure she’s safe, and if it came down to Alex or the world, Kara would choose Alex every time (despite Alex's own vehement objections, surely).

Furthermore, Lena knows, rationally, realistically, that she doesn’t have to worry about Alex Danvers, because she’s _Alex freakin’ Danvers_ , and even if she didn’t have Supergirl watching her like a hawk making sure nobody ever causes her the slightest bit of discomfort, she’d still be Alex freakin’ Danvers, and she could obliterate anybody she felt like obliterating, just for the hell of it.

So Lena is very, very tempted to inform Alex of this reality. To tell her that she isn’t just exhausted and closed off because caring about Kara is so taxing—she’s exhausted and closed off because caring about _both of them_ is so goddamn taxing. Back when it was just Kara, back when the only person in her life, the only reason she converted oxygen to carbon dioxide (other than such fickle, inane things as _work_ or _money_ or _legacy_ , or helping people in the abstract, which is nothing compared Kara, and what Kara does, what Kara represents), back when the only person she let into her sphere of reality, the only person she trusted, believed in, allowed to believe in her—back when it was only Kara, she could survive. It was tiring, yes. It was stressful, of course. Because if you really care about someone, if you really love them, it’s inevitably tiring and stressful, especially if they’re a superhero with what could or could not be called a death wish, depending who you ask.

Still, Lena could handle that. She could handle Supergirl.

She can’t handle Supergirl plus Supergirl’s sister. Namely because Supergirl may or may not have death wish, but nine times out of ten, Supergirl’s sister seems to operate as if there is no other option than literally sacrificing her own life or wellbeing for no particular reason at all.

But this is a new discovery. It’s a new discovery, and Lena hasn’t had enough time to explore, to investigate it yet, because of time and space and little boxes, so she’s afraid she won’t explain it properly. She’s afraid she’ll cause more pain in this woman who’s already struggling, who already had intubate her little sister today, and so she makes a calculated decision to hold off, to refrain from channeling her inner Kara Danvers and giving Alex the pep talk she truly deserves, in favor of preserving the ease of their newfound closeness.

So instead of all the things she wants to say, Lena instead reaches out for Alex’s hand, and holds it tight until yet another nondescript black-clad agent calls for ‘ _Agent Danvers_ ’ and ruins the moment.

...

 _Ruins_ the moment?

Lena is so fucked.

Time, space, little boxes.

What the fuck happened to time, space, and little boxes?

She tried to give Alex Danvers a _pep talk_. She confessed to having _emotions_. Lena Luthor does not have _emotions_. If she does, she certainly doesn’t vocalize or display them.

Time.

Space.

Little boxes.

Otherwise, she can’t survive.

\----

So Lena, desperate to avoid the DEO and the Danvers, spends the next few days devoted to stopping the media from wildly speculating on Supergirl’s status/livelihood. She tries her best to deflect, to point out that Reign hasn’t been seen either, to try and disprove as many theories as possible without coming off too blatantly biased.

And if that weren’t breaking her new rules enough already, she also takes a few phone calls from Alex, both to comfort her in her panic and to aid her in her pursuits, learning all about the ship from the future and this newly-awoken time-traveling Legionnaire called _Brainy_ of all things.

Even when Reign does re-emerge by throwing a criminal through a glass window at CatCo and announcing to the world that nobody can escape her justice or whatever, Lena manages to dodge actually going to the DEO to help, instead insisting she should help with the media response.

Because she does as well as she can at being helpful without… _overstepping_. Keeping as much in line as she can with _time, space, little boxes_ , she thinks of her actions merely as contributions to society. The good of mankind. She isn’t helping Kara; she’s helping Supergirl. She isn’t helping Alex; she’s helping Agent Danvers.

(Or, as some may call it: semantics.)

That is, she does well until Alex illuminates her on the _genius_ fucking idea to draw out Reign by filling a bank with DEO agents and staging a robbery, a _stellar_ fucking plan which includes the miniscule amount of Kryptonite the agency still possesses and a meager few red sun grenades.

“I can help,” Lena insists upon hearing the really _top-notch_ fucking scheme. “Give me a day or two, I can make some synthetic Kryptonite from Lex’s plans, o-or create a red sun lamp that will dampen her powers for a longer period of time, or—”

“We don’t have a day or two,” Alex argues. “She’s going to hurt people.”

“She’s going to hurt _you_ if you go through with this ludicrous plan!”

“I’ll be fine, Lena,” the agent snarls. “Let me do my job.”

\----

Since Kara revealed to her that she was Supergirl, Lena has grown used to post-op check-ins. Anytime Supergirl got involved in any fight that might make the news, Kara made a point to call or text Lena right after. Hearing Kara’s voice, or seeing her emoji-filled texts reassuring Lena of her best friend’s well-being—it became a staple Lena didn’t appreciate until it suddenly disappeared.

It’s different now, though, because she gets the call from Alex.

If she’s being honest with herself, her impulse is to nearly storm the DEO med bay as soon as she sees the agent’s name pop up on her screen. Instead, she accepts the call with sheer panic, her body trembling against her will with anticipation and apprehension.

“Did you get her?”

“No,” the agent grunts out. “She shrugged off the Kryptonite like it was a minor inconvenience, then she broke my leg as a parting gift.”

“What? Femur, fibula, or tibia? Are you okay?”

“Tibia, and I’m fine. I got a high pain tolerance and I’m pretty accustomed to broken bones.”

“Kryptonian sister,” Lena mumbles dryly.

“I’m fine,” Alex snarls. “I just want Reign dead, and as long as Supergirl is—"

She cuts herself off with a frustrated groan.

“Kara hasn’t woken up yet?” Lena translates. “Yet you’re still determined to take this villain on without her there to back you up?”

“There’s nothing else to do, Lena!” Alex snaps, nearly growling. “The tank has drained, there’s no physical reason she isn’t awake yet. It’s mental, it’s psychological. She’s not _ready_. I have to make her ready, I have to create a world where it’s safe for her to wake up.”

The young billionaire inhales sharply, taking in this new information.

This is killing her, not being able to help. She wants to help, _needs_ to help, but she doesn’t know how. She has no idea how to help the two most important people in her life.

But she’s thinking time, space, and little boxes might not be the way, no matter how much she wishes they were. 

Her mind works at the speed of light, and although she tries to correct herself, to remind herself to stick to that new mantra— _time, space, little boxes, time space little boxes, timespacelittleboxes_ —she finds herself saying out loud, “You can communicate with her, yes?”

“What? Yes. Not directly, but—”

“Through the alien from the future. Brainiac?”

“Brainiac-5. Brainy. Yeah, he’s communicating with her for us.”

Closing her eyes tightly (although nobody is there to see it), Lena bites the bullet. “Tell him to remind her that tomorrow is two weeks.”

The pause is short, but heavy. Pregnant.

“Lena…” Alex breathes.

“Tell him to tell her that if she doesn’t wake up by tomorrow, she won’t get my call,” she replies brusquely, her tone leaving no room for doubt or debate. “I made a promise to her that I would call her after two weeks and tell her where I am at, how I feel. I intend to keep that promise, and I would very much enjoy it if when I call her to bare my soul, she is conscious to hear me. I detest having to repeat myself.”

There’s another pause, equally as tense as the first, but longer, now.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come see her? Maybe it would help, if she heard your voice—”

“She can’t _hear_ my voice, she’s in a coma!” Lena barks before she can stop herself. It takes her a second to absorb the absolute shittiness of what she’s just done, but once she has, she closes her eyes and, as contritely as possible, tries to apologize. “Alex, I—”

But the older woman cuts her off before she can even start, her voice cold, curt. Callous.

“Look, I love compartmentalization and intellectualization as much as the next highly-traumatized scientist, but I think you’re taking it a little far.”

“Alex, please—”

“Now,” the agent continues as if never interrupted. “Usually I’d let this slide and have you handle this however you see best without getting overly involved, but I’m stressed out, sidelined, and you’re pissing me off, so instead, I’m going to be candid with you. You are being an asshole.”

“I’m just—”

“ _Barring emergencies._ ”

Alex snarls out the words like a dog about to attack, but they rip holes into Lena’s heart, body, mind, soul, do more damage than any angry animal ever could. Lena feels the breath leaving her lungs all at once, and she almost drops her phone but she’s frozen in place.

“You said that,” the protective sister says, clearly, pointedly. “Two weeks, barring emergency. So what the fuck do you think an emergency is if not this? Or did you only mean that as a one-sided deal?”

“I—” Lena stammers, shaking her head though Alex can’t see it. “I’m just—”

“Protecting yourself at her expense. So afraid of losing her if she dies that you haven’t even _thought_ about how she’ll feel when she wakes up and you’re not there.”

“I’m doing my best!” the CEO finally blurts, raspy and choked. “I’m helping, I’m—”

“If you were in a coma, Kara wouldn’t leave your side. She'd be sitting there, holding your hand, talking to you. She'd only leave your side if it meant she could bring to justice whoever hurt you. That's where I am, for her. And where the hell are you, Lena? On TV, defending her honor, her reputation? Do you really think that’s what’s important to her right now?” Alex laughs derisively, almost deranged. “You know, three days ago, I would've said you'd react to this whole situation a lot differently. But Jesus, Lena, it's like I don't even recognize you. You go from sitting on the floor in your designer clothes just to comfort me, to being nowhere to be found basically overnight; you answer my calls, but act like a robot when we talk; you haven’t even threatened _one single person_ on Kara’s behalf _._ Hell, you haven’t even complained that James is still following you around! It’s—” She cuts herself off with a scoff, then concludes, so ruthlessly that Lena’s almost proud, would be proud if she weren’t on the receiving end, “I don’t know what’s gotten into you, Lena, but you’re acting like a real fucking Luthor right now, you know that?”

Then she hangs up before Lena has a chance to stand up for herself.

Not that she could, even if she wanted to.

_Fuck._

“Mr. Olsen!” she shouts before she has a chance to talk herself out of it. “We’re going to see Kara and Alex.”

He pops his head in the door. “Wha—?”

“ _Now_.”

She sweeps up her coat and purse and strides out of the office with purpose.

Because she isn't a real fucking Luthor, and she's about to prove it.


	5. everybody hurts, everybody breaks, and everybody fades (we're gonna tell everyone's it's okay)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena confronts some feelings and Kara confronts Reign.

“Lena!” James calls after her as she struts confidently out of CatCo and toward her car. “Lena, what are you doing?”

“Get in,” she commands, climbing smoothly into the backseat as she asks her driver, “Do you remember where the building where you picked us up on Christmas Eve?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he replies dutifully.

“Take us there,” Lena demands James scrambles into the car.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Then he closes the door behind James and circles the car to the driver’s seat. Before he gets in, James grunts in frustration and admits, “They’re not at the DEO.”

“So where are they?” Lena growls. “Give Brent an address. Now.”

James bites his lip, but under the evil glare of green eyes, eventually relents and gives up the location of what he calls the _Legion Cruiser._

And it would have been almost as infuriating to infiltrate the ship as it is to get into the DEO, except that James lets it slip that Winn is on the ship. With two brusque words and one raised eyebrow from the CEO, he’s pulling out his phone to call his friend.

“Put it on speaker,” Lena insists coldly, and James hesitates, but she changes his mind with another withering stare.

“James!” Winn answers brightly. “What can I do you for, my friend?”

“Lena and I are at the spot,” he says obliquely. “I need you to get us up to you.”

“Um…” Winn hisses reluctantly. “I should ask Alex, or J’onn—”

“Beam us up, Schotty, or you’ll have me to answer to,” Lena barks, and she can almost hear the blood leave Winn’s face as he audibly gulps.

“Y-yes, ma’am, I’m sorry. Sorry.”

As James hangs up the phone, he grumbles something under his breath, but Lena doesn’t pay attention other than to hear the word ‘ _spineless_.’

“Take me to her.”

It’s less than three minutes later that Lena—having ordered James to stay away from her, far away, given she’s on a secret spaceship and no longer faces any real, feasible threat to her safety—is standing in a doorway, looking into the room where Kara lies unconscious, her sister holding vigil by her side, her leg in a mechanical brace. Alex’s face is haggard, inscrutable, her eyes swimming with repressed emotion—namely, Lena suspects, fear.

She knocks tentatively on the wall, and when Alex’s head pops up and sees it’s Lena, her entire body steels immediately.

“What are you doing here?”

“Repenting,” she sighs candidly, crossing her arms over her chest and daring a step forward. “Too little, too late, I know, but…I want to try, at least. Even if it ends up being in vain.”

Alex averts her eyes, instead focusing on Kara, her chin quivering slightly. “Might not even matter.”

“It isn’t only Kara I owe an apology to,” Lena asserts. “I owe one to you, as well. You were right—I’ve been selfish, and cold, and I allowed my fear of losing her overwhelm me. And when that was combined with my fear of losing _you_ …well, I shut down completely, and I failed to be there to support Kara, and to support you, in a time when you truly needed me. I don’t expect my presence now to make up for the pain and loneliness and betrayal, but I hope you know I acknowledge and apologize for what I’ve done.”

Brown eyes, still trained on Kara’s lifeless body, brim with tears until Alex sucks in a deep breath, ostensibly to push them away. After a moment, though, her attention snaps over to the remorseful woman hovering half a step over the threshold.

“Your fear of losing me?”

Lena winces, internally chides herself for allowing that particular admission slip into her speech. She plans her words carefully in her mind before reluctantly replying:

“It’s no secret you tend to get reckless when Kara is hurt. I’ve seen it firsthand. Without her around to protect you, I-I feared the worst.”

In lieu of responding, the agent merely tilts her head, studying Lena, her jaw set, her eyes dark.

So Lena pulls out the big guns.

“Every single person I’ve ever loved in my life, I have lost,” she utters, her voice shaky and solemn but firm enough to count. “My mom, Lex, Jack. It seems a short list, but it’s an impactful one. I don’t let many people in, and the fact that all of them—before Kara, I had committed to never loving again. To never trusting anybody, ever again, and instead, here I am, barely two years later, and I find myself unable to sleep at night because I’ve allowed myself to love Kara, and you, and Sam, and even Ruby, and I-I’m certain that the sheer fact that I love you all will mean you all die.”

Alex merely raises her eyebrows, although the CEO swears she sees the corners of the woman’s mouth twitching slightly.

Which causes her to pause, and reflect a bit on what she just confessed.

“Now that I say it out loud, it’s even sillier than it sounds in my head,” she murmurs, then bursts out in semi-hysterical, incredibly inappropriate laughter, finding herself joined quickly by the very woman she’s supposed to be apologizing to. The latter’s laughter dies down first, though, which abruptly cuts off Lena’s.

“Next time, Luthor, tell me that _before_ you act like a selfish asshole for three days.”

Lena shrugs guiltily, swinging her hand up limply to gesture at the unconscious alien. “You were kinda preoccupied. I didn’t want to bother you with my silly insecurities.”

“I wouldn’t have minded if it meant I’d _have you here_.” She seems to catch herself somehow, and sputters a moment before adding, “For Kara, I mean.”

One perfectly-sculpted, ebony eyebrow arches up in challenge. “Agent Danvers, we’ve comforted each other through breakups. Our bond was hermetically sealed over whiskey and tacos. I think we can admit to each other that in this particular misery, we both would have done better with each other’s company.”

Alex smiles sadly.

“But since it’s my fault we didn’t, allow me to apologize again.”

With a kind nod, she offers, “I forgive you. _This_ time.”

“Fair enough.”

“I’d get up and hug you, but…”

She trails off, lifting her splinted leg a few inches in the air.

“Let me do the honors, then,” Lena smiles, crossing the room and leaning down to wrap her arms loosely around strong, supple shoulders. Alex returns the embrace, but tighter, circling her arms around Lena’s waist and exhaling heavily into pale skin. The gesture alone sends a shockwave of guilt through Lena’s soul, because through it, she understands just how lonely and desperate and scared her friend has felt over the past three days.

God, she’s such a Luthor sometimes.

“I promise, Alex. I’ll be here front and center to support you, or Kara, the next time one of you inevitably pulls some stupid heroics and winds up needlessly hurt.”

She lets out a watery chuckle into Lena’s shoulder before pulling away from her. “I’d really appreciate that. I think she would too.”

Lena drags another stool over and sets up shop next to Alex, patting her lap to encourage the injured woman to prop her leg up. She does so (although not without a highly theatrical eye roll), and they sit in silence for a while, staring at the comatose superhero. Alex’s hands, as soon as they released Lena, returned to hold Kara’s hand, as if drawn by magnets, like if she stops touching Kara, she’ll stop existing. Lena, finally, breaks the silence with a heavy sigh.

“I fell in love with her the first day I met her,” she muses. “Of course I didn’t know it, because as I’m sure you’ve detected, I’m utterly useless when it comes to emotional intelligence and self-awareness, but…when I look back, it’s clear. She came into my office, all fidgets and nervous smiles, letting Clark Kent take the lead, yet somehow never believing I was bad. Or even that I _could_ be bad. She’s always had the utmost faith in me, and it’s…it’s made me be better. I’ve always wanted to be good, don’t get me wrong, but seeing the way Kara—who is the literal personification of hope and sunshine and rainbows—looks at me like I could do no wrong…”

She trails off, unsure where she’s going with that thought. Luckily, Alex Danvers comes to the rescue.

“Same here.”

“I had a feeling she reciprocated,” Lena hums. “I thought she was going to tell me, once, but instead she told me she was Supergirl. I wanted to feel hurt, and betrayed, and angry. Angry that she didn’t trust me, angry that she lied to me, but then…then she gave me that patented Kara Danvers pout, and told me she only wanted to protect me. To keep me safe. And I thought about how I…well, how I have this highly irrational yet deep-seeded fear that if I love someone, they will either die or go crazy and try to kill me. Or, potentially, both. So I understood, somewhat, where she was coming from, and in the end, I-I couldn’t be mad at her. Even though I wanted to be.”

“Yeah, that pout works wonders, doesn’t it?” Alex mutters dryly, reaching out to smooth the space between Kara’s eyebrows. “Especially when she brings the crinkle into things.”

Now it’s Lena’s turn to roll her eyes dramatically. “God save us all when the patented Kara Danvers pout is paired with the patented Kara Danvers crinkle.”

She expects at least one chuckle out of Alex, but instead, the older woman continues to gaze fondly at her kid sister, brushing blonde hair away from her paler-than-usual face. When she does, eventually, speak, her voice is barely above a whisper.

“She fell in love with you at first sight, too.”

Lena’s heart sinks. “How can you be so sure of that?”

Still combing through tangled waves, Alex takes a long, deep breath, smiling a small, affectionate, yet sad smile down at the unresponsive face of most important person in her life.

“Since the very first time she’s mentioned you, she’s talked about you like she talks about Krypton.”

Lena feels her lip starting to quiver, and she tries to hold back, but she can’t contain the sob that escapes her, from deep in her chest. Her hands shoot up to cover her mouth as every single emotion she tried not to feel the past three days comes surging to the surface of her mind, and she wills them to go away, but she worries it's too late.

So _of course_ , that’s when the blue Coluan makes his presence known. It does, however, give Lena enough impetus to call upon all her boarding school-turned-boardroom propriety to muster up her aplomb and chase her emotions away.

“Agent Danvers. And Lena Luthor, I presume. Is…this a bad time?”

Alex shoots him a look that to anyone with the most basic social skills would read as _yes, obviously_ , but he doesn’t seem to notice, and instead interprets their silence as negation of his concern, bringing his hands together so the tips of his fingers form an inverted triangle over his navel.

“No? Excellent. I’ve come to inform you that we are nearing Albatross Bay. The Legion has concocted a plan which, with exactly ninety-one-point-nine-five-percent certainty, will draw Reign away from the prisoners and toward an isolated location where we can attack. I believe it is some sort of, er, outdoor recreation facility for the incarcerated individuals.”

With an only-slightly exasperated nod, Alex translates, flatly, “The prison yard.”

“Sure. In any case, we have thirty-one seconds until we reach our destination, and approximately twenty-two seconds after that until Reign engages. Don’t be alarmed if, during the battle, you feel slight turbulence or hear Bon Jovi.”

“Thank you, Brainy. Call me if I’m needed.”

“Of course, Agent Danvers.”

With a sharp nod, the blue alien turns on heel and marches down the hall.

“I’m sorry,” Lena breathes, her previous display of emotion over and done with, forgotten due to the fact that she’s too flummoxed to remember what it feels like to be anything other than flummoxed. “What is going on?”

Alex sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose. “We figured out Reign’s next target. The prison. Where the guilty live. In her corrupted sense of justice, everyone in the building deserves to die. Our plan is to smoke her out so we can spare the prisoners and guards while we take her down. Since mere proximity to Kryptonite didn’t stop her before, we have to introduce it more… _invasively._ ”

“You’re going to inject her with it?” she gapes. “Who the hell is going to be strong enough to pierce a needle through a Kryptonian?”

“Mon-El.”

The sheer tone of her voice tells Lena that the sidelined agent is no happier with this plan than she is, so she shrewdly opts not to push back. Instead, she inhales deeply and reaches out her hand, placing it gingerly on Kara’s thigh.

Except Alex, evidently, has something on her mind.

“Does Kara know you know how make Kryptonite?” she blurts through gritted teeth.

At first, Lena furrows her brows, unsure where this line of questioning has come from, until she recalls that, earlier in the day, in her desperation to help save the world, she might have accidentally mentioned to the protective older sister of a Kryptonian that she knows how to synthesize the one material that can indisputably harm said alien.

Still, she tells the truth, because at this point, she owes Alex at least that much.

“Yes,” she admits. “I told her, just before we got together. I didn’t want there to be any secrets between us—except the obvious one, of course, about us being in love with each other.”

“And she isn’t angry with you?”

Lena shakes her head. “Surprisingly, no. She said she trusts me. Apparently, to her own detriment.”

And if Alex has a retort, it’s cut off by Kara coming to.

First it’s just a whimper, but it’s enough to get their attention. And when that whimper is followed by deliberate movement, clear attempts to stretch out sore muscles, Alex twists her entire body, lowering her injured leg from Lena’s lap with a loud _clunk_ that sounds like it probably would have hurt her if she’d been in her right mind to notice, in order to place both her hands on her sister (one cradling her face, one lacing their fingers together in near-desperation).

“Kara?” the tried-and-true older sister chokes out, the firestorm of relief and concern rolling off her in palpable waves. “Kara, can you hear me?”

“Alex?” the Kryptonian murmurs hoarsely, her eyes blinking into focus. “…L-Lena?”

“We’re here, darling,” Lena breathes, squeezing Kara’s strong leg and reaching her other hand out to place atop the sisters’ intertwined fingers.

“Reign. She—I have to stop her.”

“You need to rest,” Alex insists, lowering her hand from her cheek to her chest as the superhero tries to sit up, as if she could ever possibly push hard enough to keep the alien down. “Besides, they’re using Kryptonite, you—”

“I don’t care if it weakens me!” she growls, ripping sensors and wires off her torso. “I’ll use it to my advantage. What do we have to do?”

She stands up, and Alex tries to do the same, wincing in pain as she instinctively puts weight on her broken leg. “Kara! Please, don’t, please—”

“What do we have to do?” she repeats urgently.

Alex’s jaw tightens, her eyes more panicked than Lena’s ever seen them, even in the three days Kara’s been comatose. “There’s a syringe, filled with concentrated Kryptonite. You need to inject her with it. Jugular or carotid, preferably. But Kara, J’onn and the Legion are—”

But she’s already out of earshot, leaving the two terrified, preemptively heartbroken scientists behind, and Alex all but collapses onto the bed that Kara just vacated, burying her face in her hands and mumbling to herself under her breath.

“She’s going to be okay, Alex.”

“Oh yeah, cuz I’m supposed to trust you!” she spits back. “You know how to manufacture the _only thing_ that can kill her, yet you’re sitting here reassuring me of her safety?”

“I love and value her more than I love and value my own life, Agent Danvers,” Lena retorts. “If you honestly believe at this point that I would _ever_ do _anything_ to intentionally hurt Kara, you better call Stanford and see if you can get a refund on that PhD of yours!”

Alex flings her arm out, knocking over her abandoned stool with enough force that Lena’s surprised it doesn’t break. Futuristic materials, she supposes. She flinches a little at the sound, but doesn’t react much more; however, it appears enough to spark guilt in the agent over the outburst.

“I’m sorry,” Alex acquiesces, her voice hollow and broken and painful to listen to. “I’ve spent half my life protecting her, it’s really hard to—”

She cuts herself off with a shaky breath.

“I’m sorry,” she repeats. “I’m upset and scared and I’m taking it out on you and it’s not fair. It’s not fair to anyone, because it’s not even helping me feel better, so what’s the damn point?”

Lena chuckles lowly. “Hey, you got four wonderful seconds just now between worrying your sister would never wake up and worrying that she’d be put in another coma. Are you trying to say that wasn’t relief enough?”

Alex lets out a huff of laughter despite herself, and so Lena feels safe to lean forward, cupping her hands around Alex’s cheeks. “I’m scared too.”

“I’m always scared,” the agent scoffs automatically. “But usually I can at least be out there, fighting alongside her.”

“Well,” she shrugs noncommittally. “At least this time I can genuinely say I know how you feel.”

“Yeah,” the redhead cringes. “Sorry about all the yelling today. I can get mean when I’m upset.”

“I can get closed-off and selfish,” the businesswoman hums. “I heard a rumor that some people see therapists for things like this.”

Alex lets out a bark of laughter. “Oh man. I don’t care how many degrees or years of experience, one session with me and any therapist would be running for the hills.”

“If they managed to get out of the room before their head exploded.”

“You’re one to talk. Can you imagine the look on a shrink’s face when you tell them that after growing up with convicted anti-alien terrorists Lex and Lillian Luthor, you then proceeded to fall in love with an alien?”

Lena snorts rather tastelessly, a sign of her comfort with and trust in her current company. Her retort, whatever it would be, is cut off when the ship jolts, causing her breath to catch in her throat, instead informing her friend:

“Have I ever mentioned to you that I hate flying?”

“Statistically, it’s the safest way to travel.”

She concedes a small smile at this. “What do we do now?”

Inhaling deeply, Alex shrugs. “We wait. We wait, and we hope Supergirl and Mon-El and Imra save the day.”

“Imra?”

“Mon-El’s wife.”

“Oh dear God.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“How is she…?” Lena cuts herself off, attempts to steady her impending emotions. “How is Kara handling that whole situation?”

“The way only Kara can,” Alex scoffs. “With grace and patience and bottled up emotions and one day very very soon, he’s going to wax a little too poetic about how she saved him and made him a better man and his whole crime-fighting, universe-saving mentality is all because of her, and then she’s going to punch him. Hard. And all I can say is, I really hope I’m there to see it.”

“Wow,” the CEO muses. “You really don’t like him, huh?”

“I think sometimes she’s too damn nice for her own good. And I think he’s actively causing her pain for every day he is standing here, telling her that he’s reformed himself by her example, when he did nothing but hurt, deceive, and coerce her during the months before she sent him away despite her better judgment.”

Another shock of turbulence causes Lena to nearly glue her eyes shut, her arm shooting out to grip the edge of the table.

“Well,” she gulps after a few deep, centering breaths. “This is a uniquely terrifying experience.”

The older woman scrubs her face with the heels of her hands, digging into the muscles so hard that when she pulls away, her forehead has turned faintly pink. “If she gets hurt again, I’m going to fucking kill her.”

“I’ll help you hide the body,” Lena grumbles.

They hear some rushed footfalls accompanied by the occasional shoe squeaks, and none other than Winn Schott careens around the corner, doubling over and panting as soon as he comes to a stop.

“It’s done,” he gasps, clutching at his chest, pulling on his tie to loosen it. “It’s—Kara did it. She injected her. Nobody’s hurt. Except Reign, maybe, but she flew away.”

“She flew away?” Alex grunts, her nostrils flaring. “After being injected with Kryptonite?”

Winn, still catching his breath, jerks his arms out in some movement resembling a shrug. “Now I know why we have comms. Running is awful.”

“So I should wait for J’onn and Kara to get the full debrief,” Alex deadpans. Then, however, she softens a bit. “Thank you, Winn. For letting me know they’re okay.”

He nods, still breathless, and informs them, “We’re heading back to the DEO as soon as everyone’s back on board.”

“Tell my sister she needs at least an hour under yellow sun lamps before she does anything else.”

“It’ll probably be more effective if you tell her yourself,” Winn drawls, his voice getting higher pitched as the sentence went on. “But I’ll try.”

As he turns to leave the room, he stops, shooting a nervous glance over his shoulder at Lena. “Should—should I keep Kara out of here, for now?”

Lena stammers a second, but doesn’t have a chance to even organize her thoughts before Alex comes to her rescue.

“I’ll be out in the main bay in a few minutes. No need for anyone to come back here for now.”

“Copy.”

Then he scurries out without another word.

Lena’s sure she hasn’t blinked since his initial offer. As soon as Winn leaves, she finds her wide-eyed gaze drifting toward Alex, who frowns sympathetically.

“You can see her if you want, of course. But only do what you’re comfortable with.” She inhales deeply, reaching out for some sort of staff or cane-like instrument, and Lena finds herself barely containing to urge to reprimand her, telling her to keep her full weight off her injured leg. Instead, she bites her lip and syncopates her breath with Alex’s. “It’s been a long night. I recommend we all get some rest before we bring anymore emotions into the mix.”

“I don’t think I’m ready,” Lena blurts, realizing immediately afterwards that there wasn’t actually a question there. “To see her. I need…seeing her, it—and the circumstances—”

“Take the night, Lena,” Alex reiterates, reaching out to pat her knee. “Mull it over. I’m sorry—I’d offer my company, to talk it over, share a bottle or two or twelve of wine, but…”

She trails off, and Lena nods knowingly, completely free of judgment or resentment or jealousy. Alex is, at her core and above all else, an older sister. A defender, a champion, a support system. She is that to everyone she cares about, but Kara comes first. Kara will _always_ come first, and Lena not only understands that about her friend, but she adores it about her.

“Kara needs you tonight. And you need her. In another world, perhaps, she’d be curled up on the couch between us, completely protected and taken care of and loved and safe. I wish, I _wish_ , that could happen in this world, in this reality, but…I don’t have it in me tonight. So please, _please_ just take care of her. Do what you do best, even though I’m too weak and selfish to help you do it.”

Alex dips her head, angles her face several ways until she manages to catch Lena’s insecure green eyes. Her brown eyes gleam with a softness, a compassion that barely seems human to the Luthor, especially given the fact that it’s directed _at_ a Luthor.

“You’re doing the best you can, Lena,” she vows. “And it’s better than I could do, better than most people could do, in your position. I know I was harsh on you tonight, but that had less to do with you and more to do with me and how I show my love and fear and how I react to maybe losing things I love. Also a few abandonment issues I'm sure I don't need to explain to you. You’re doing the best you can, and it’s incredible, and admirable, and I’m so proud of you, and I just want to make sure you’re taking care of yourself, too. I want to help you feel better.”

She reaches out, cups Lena’s pale face in her hand. It’s somehow calloused and soft at the same time, impossibly warm and gentle and in some way, it feels like everything. They stare into each other’s eyes, and they share something that strikingly resembles a _moment_.

A moment where Lena feels safe, and home, and cared for, and Alex is looking at her like her mom used to look at her, her _real_ mom, looking at her with love and reverence and pride and wonder, like she can’t believe Lena actually exists, and Lena is simultaneously overwhelmed and soothed. She wants this to last forever, but she also wants it to stop immediately, because she doesn’t understand it, doesn’t want to understand it, but she does want to feel it, at least a few seconds longer.

So when Alex abruptly pulls away, standing up suddenly and leaning her weight on her good leg, hopping slightly away from the table she’d been sitting on, clearing her throat—Lena feels a little like the breath has been taken from her lungs.

“I should go check on Kara,” Alex gulps, her cheeks flushing an adorable pink. “I—just call me, okay? If you need me—anything. If you need anything, just call. Anytime, I’ll be—yeah. Okay.”

Lena wants to agree, she wants to let her go, but she finds her head shaking despite herself.

“I need to see her,” she whispers, barely audible, but somehow, the agent catches it nonetheless. “Not _see_ her, but…I want to see her. I need to…look at her. To know she’s okay. Does that make sense?”

A wry smirk breaks across the taller woman’s face. “More than you know.” She uses the hand not leaning her weight on her cane to ruffle the back of her hair, her face screwed up in thought, before she sighs, jerks her head toward the hall, and says, “Follow me. I’ll make sure you can see her, and hear her voice, without her seeing you.”

“Wh—?”

“Come with me. Now.”

And while it occurs to Lena she’d normally be defiant to such barked, imposing orders, she instead instinctually follows Alex, as if on a leash, down a labyrinth of hallways—which in any other state of mind, she would have spent far more time exploring and analyzing and at very least observing, being the scientist she is, but she’s already gone through over half a dozen precarious emotional shifts over the course of the night, leaving her too exhausted and dazed to take in any new information unrelated to Kara and Alex and their wellbeing. Thus, she follows Alex’s limping form, frowning and once again having half a mind to insist that the injured agent take further precaution to avoid placing weight on her snapped bone, and she’s about to say something to that effect, but it’s quashed when Alex stops suddenly, dipping her shoulder to gesture at an alcove around the corner from the main part of the ship where she entered. 

“We’ll just be on the other side of this wall,” Alex whispers. “You’ll be able to hear, but you won’t have to see her if you’re not ready.”

Lena blushes slightly at the words, which she might have found condescending if not for the empathy and benevolence woven so thoroughly in them by the other woman. So instead of fighting back, she hides in the shadows, but not before she mouths, “Thank you.”

Alex’s only further acknowledgement is a sharp nod, and then she hobbles into the other room.

“ _Alex_ ,” Kara’s voice breathes a hearty sigh of relief, and Lena can hear spry footfalls first approach, then stop. “You’re hurt. She hurt you. Oh my God.”

“She hurt you, too,” Alex quips. “But I’m fine, I’m just worried about you.”

“Alex, your _leg_ ¸ it’s completely—”

“What have I said about x-ray visioning me without my permission?”

Lena stifles a chuckle at that, imagining the adorable, chagrined flush that probably passes over Kara’s face at the reprimand. She can envision the scene on the other side of the wall—the Danvers sisters, facing off, matching crinkles in their foreheads as they both focus so intently on worrying about the other that they don’t actually manage to exchange enough meaningful information about their current states to, in fact, counter the worrying.

“Will you at least sit down, please?” Kara asks in a small voice, the one that is usually accompanied by a slight, yet still-insurmountable, pout.

“Only if you spend an hour under the lamps when we get back to the DEO.”

“Hmph,” the alien replies, but that’s the extent of her protests, apparently, because the next thing Lena hears is a _whoosh_ of air followed by an indignant shout.

“You didn’t have to pick me up, Kara, jeez,” Alex grumbles, then there’s a series of clattering sounds that seem to indicate she’s thrown her cane to the ground. “I could have—I can _lift my own leg_ , Kara, for fuck’s sake—”

“I don’t like when you’re hurt,” Kara grumbles back, and the sadness in her voice is enough to break Lena’s heart every day for the rest of her life.

“I don’t like when you’re in a coma for three days.”

There’s a brief pause, and again, Lena can picture the scene perfectly: Alex, having been carried against her will to a chair and had her leg forcibly propped up, staring into the endless ocean that is Kara’s eyes as the Kryptonian kneels next to her, fussing over the closest thing to a home she’s had since her planet burned. Their silent eye contact speaks volumes about the bond they share, a bond that most people could only ever dream of having with another person, a bond that could never be broken or even damaged, really. She knows the tender gaze those two exchange in that moment, because she’s seen it a hundred times, at least.

“I’m sorry.”

Kara is the first to break the silence, her apology coming with such sincerity that it takes Lena’s breath away, despite not technically being on the receiving end of it.

“It’s not your fault, Kara. I didn’t mean it like that,” Alex’s corresponding apology is just as sincere. “I just…are you okay?”

“Yes,” Kara asserts. “I’m good. I’m ready, now. Reign’s gone, at least for now, and—oh God. _Lena_. Is Lena—?”

The businesswoman in question stiffens, presses her body against the wall as if this will stop _Supergirl_ from seeing her. Alex is shushing her sister, in the other room, but it only takes a second until Kara continues.

“Oh. She’s…she’s…”

Kara is listening for Lena’s heartbeat. Lena knows; she’s listening for her heartbeat, and she hears that it’s just around the corner, and she knows it’s probably killing the alien to hear her heartbeat so close and not be able to offer her love and care and support. She’s tempted, even, to round the corner and approach the superhero herself, to fall into her arms and apologize and feel the warm, strong embrace around her that tells her, reminds her, that Kara is well and thriving and _alive._

“Yeah,” Alex sighs. “She wanted to hear your voice, because she was worried about you. She _is_ worried about you. But it’s been an emotional night for everyone and I thought it best that she stick to the plan and wait until tomorrow to talk.”

Lena seals her eyes shut, fighting a lump in her throat that feels far too similar to tears. She doesn’t know what she would be crying about, even, and if she doesn’t know what she would be crying about, then she doesn’t really have a right to cry, now does she? Alex just stood up for her, and Kara seems to be respecting the preset boundaries, but still, it all makes the scientist feel…overwhelmed, maybe?

Whatever it is, the Luthor does not care for it.

So she pushes it down, pushes it back, and focuses again on eavesdropping on the sisters, even though it isn’t really eavesdropping anymore, because they are both acutely aware of Lena’s presence and position.

“How did she hurt you?” Kara asks, finally, her voice quivering a tad. “How did she—how did she get a _chance_ to hurt you?”

“It’s not important right now. What’s important is figuring out why Kryptonite is a minor inconvenience to her and not a catastrophic nightmare like it is for you. What’s important is figuring out what _will_ stop her, since Kryptonite doesn’t seem to do the trick.”

“We will,” Supergirl vows. “I promise. You’re the smartest person I know, Alex. I know we’ll figure this out.”

Lena breathes out a sigh of relief. Now satisfied that her—no, no, not _her_ anything, other than her best friend, maybe, but still—now satisfied that _Kara_ is safe, she moves to retreat back to the safety of solitude, if for no other reason than to offer them privacy.

But then, loudly, louder than necessary, as if unsure whether or not their hidden guest was still listening and making sure she can hear either way, Alex blurts out, “Why didn’t you tell me Lena could make Kryptonite?”

Kara’s answer, however, never comes to pass, as she is interrupted by J’onn.

“Agent Danvers,” his gruff yet caring voice rings out. Lena finds it endearing how hard he tries to pretend he’s hard and cold and down-to-business, when he’d so obviously do whatever it took to protect, to care for, his chosen family.

“J’onn,” Alex breathes, the relief evident in her voice. “You’re okay.”

“Yes. And, I fear, so is Reign.”

Both Danvers sisters inhale sharply, and honestly, so does Lena.

J’onn then proceeds to recap the battle with Reign, culminating with the fact that Kara injected the villain with the Kryptonite.

“What the hell were you thinking, by the way?” Alex snaps.

“That I’d kill the bad guy?” Kara scoffs.

“You suck. You’re gonna give me a heart attack, one day.”

“If I could get heart attacks, you’d have given me fifty of them by now.”

Lena manages to withhold her snort, but only barely. Honestly, she’s not sure which sister she sides with more.

“Mon-El and Imra were both incapacitated. Unable to perform the necessary task. Supergirl stepped up and performed beyond the call of duty. We are all indebted to her.”

J’onn’s report comes in the most matter-of-fact, perfunctory tone possible. Until, of course, he adds:

“But, still, with respect to her own safety, she was indeed quite reckless.”

This time, Lena can’t help the chuckle that escapes her mouth, immediately regretting it due to the two aliens on the other side of the wall. By some miracle, however, they honor her boundaries and pretend she isn’t there.

“She’s down, for now,” J’onn grunts. “But we can’t get too comfortable assuming she’s down forever. If she managed to fly after being injected with Kryptonite…”

“She’s stronger than me,” Kara huffs. “I think we’ve already established that.”

Lena can just imagine her: arms akimbo, perched powerfully on her hips, her jaw set in that way it gets when she’s thinking about saving the world.

“We can worry about that tomorrow,” Alex asserts, her voice placating, almost pleading. “All I wanna do tonight is force my alien sister to get some artificial sunlight and then drink maybe about half a case of wine with her.”

J’onn’s response, of course, is to grant her wishes, but not in such explicit terms, for risk of implying that he treats her different, or that he worries too much about her (which, obviously, he does, but he has to at least pretend).

Once the Legion Cruiser, as they call it, ends up back at the DEO, Lena immediately seeks out James and demands her bring her back to her apartment. She would have just gone herself, except the godforsaken future spacecraft won’t let her escape through the way she is so certain is the exit without some sort of permissions, and she’s too exhausted (mentally, physically, and emotionally) to figure it out, so she resorts to barking at James Olsen until her gets her off the ship and into a town car headed for her penthouse, though she sternly refuses his accompaniment.

Because she wants to be alone.

…Right?

Right.

Absolutely.

By no means does she spend the whole car ride wishing that she’ll ride the elevator up to her penthouse and find Alex Danvers leaning ever-so-confidently beside her door, wearing tight jeans and a leather jacket and a smirk that would melt the brain of any sapphic in a mile's radius.

Because Alex is going to spend the night with Kara. Like she’s supposed to. Alex only ever showed up at Lena’s because she was doing it for Kara. So of course, in a situation like this, one where both Kara and Lena needed Alex, Alex would pick Kara. Obviously. That wasn’t even close to a question.

So, no. Lena isn’t surprised when Alex isn’t leaning against her doorjamb when her elevator doors open.

But, she is a little surprised—a few hours after she’s settled in on her couch with a glass of wine and trashy television she’s embarrassed to admit she watches—when Alex calls her.

When Alex Danvers’s name pops up on her phone screen, Lena’s immediate fear, as always, is that one or both sisters is injured and/or in mortal peril.

That reflex, plus the wine, causes her to answer quite urgently.

“Are you okay? Is Kara okay?”

The agent chuckles a bit on the other end of the line. “Relax, Kara is fine and so am I. She spent an hour under the lamps, I got myself a real cast, and now we’re back at my apartment. She ate two pizzas, then determined one carton of ice cream wasn’t gonna be enough, so she’s out getting more. She won’t let me move from the couch. I actually had to argue with her for ten minutes before she’d let me go to the bathroom by myself.”

Lena smirks. “Thank you for the sitrep, Agent.”

“How are you?”

“I’m watching one of those medical dramas where the characters spend more time having sex and arguing with each other than they spend treating patients,” she hums, noticing that her voice sounds a little slurred.

“Yeah, Kara doesn’t let me watch those anymore. Apparently my criticism of the science is ‘incessant and infuriating,’” she grumbles. “Look, I just wanted to check in with you. Make sure you’re doing okay. Make sure that…that _we’re_ okay. After…after everything.”

Lena smiles, although the redhead can’t see her. “Yeah, Alex, of course we’re okay.”

“Right. Okay,” Alex mutters. “Okay. So, then, I’ll, um. Kara should be back any minute, so I’ll let you get back to the drama doctors.”

“Good night, Dr. Dr. Agent Danvers.”

Alex titters a bit, in a way that makes Lena wonder if she’s a little tipsy, too.

“Good night, Miss Luthor.”

She hangs up, blinking a few times as she assesses her mental state, wondering she has it in her to think about what just happened, to analyze it deeper.

In the end, she opts to refill her wine and settle deeper into the couch, instead.

After all, she had to preserve her energy for a different phone call, with a different Danvers, which would be occurring tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not totally pleased with this chapter but oh well. Next chapter will include the fated phone call between Lena and Kara and (possibly) a special guest appearance by Ruby.


	6. when you're all up and lonely (you can radiate right to me)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, my friends! This chapter is shorter than my normal update, but I think it's a good end point, especially given what I have planned for the next part. Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy <3

Aided by a bottle of wine, the aftermath of the last few days hits Lena like a truck, and she finds herself crawling to bed less than an hour after she’s hung up with Alex. The exhaustion sets in so hard, so quick, that she barely manages to brush her teeth and plug her phone in before wrapping herself in all the blankets she has and curling up to sleep.

Of course, in her drunken, sleepy state, she briefly laments the fact that she has nobody to snuggle with, nobody to hold her and stroke her hair as she falls asleep.

But she does realize, for the first time in a long time, that she doesn’t specifically lament the fact that _Kara_ isn’t there to keep her warm and safe and held throughout the night.

Maybe that’s progress.

She sleeps later than she intends to the next morning, her usual discipline overridden by her desperate need to rest. Luckily for her, she owns her own company, and typically goes out of her way to guarantee little business gets done in the last few weeks of the calendar year—not for herself, obviously, because she hasn’t exactly ever had anyone to spend the holidays with, but for her employees. Usually, she would pick up the slack herself, but this year, with Sam and James and Kara’s insistence that she learn how to delegate, there isn’t much slack to pick up, anyway. So the fact that Lena Luthor accidentally sleeps in on a Friday morning, only waking up at the time that she’d normally be arriving at the office, is perfectly fine, for once.

Besides. Two weeks ago, when she knew this day would be coming, she had all but guaranteed she wouldn’t have a single meeting, obligation, or deadline to attend to. She knows herself too well to think she can have such an emotional conversation with Kara, while being honest and open and available, if anything else would possibly be on her mind. And she knows herself too well to think that after such an emotional conversation, where she’s honest and open and available, she’d have any capacity left over to focus on work or literally anything else.

So after she wakes up and stretches her sore muscles and brushes her teeth and frowns at her face in the mirror and puts on a pot of coffee, she grabs her phone. But instead of continuing her typical morning routine by going through her many notifications—reading the news, answering emails, et cetera—she leaves all those unattended, opting instead to immediately text Kara, asking her when she’s free to talk today.

After the text has sent, she spends a second or two staring at it, but even still, she’s barely set her phone back down on the counter before she gets the reply:

_‘Any time! I promise. Whenever you want. Seriously.’_

Lena sighs slightly, glancing over at her still-brewing coffee, before responding.

_‘I’ll call you in half an hour? Haven’t had coffee yet.’_

Again, Kara’s response seems almost immediate: ‘ _Take your time! Honestly. Literally whenever. Thank you for still wanting to talk._ ’

Lena’s heart breaks a bit at that last message, but she steels herself and forces herself to give her inbox a cursory sweep while her coffee finishes brewing.

Half an hour later, as she’s pouring the beautiful caffeinated beverage into her mug, she briefly considers digging some Irish whiskey from her liquor cabinet and spiking it, before chiding herself, reminding herself that Kara deserves better, that Kara won’t judge her or blame her no matter what, so she shouldn’t need alcohol to take the edge off the conversation.

But after two weeks without talking to her—which, frankly, is longer than they’d ever gone since they met—it all feels very overwhelming.

Because when Kara woke up from her coma, and Lena was seated next to her, there was still a part of her that wanted nothing more than to kiss the Kryptonian senseless.

There was another part, too, one that she hasn’t parsed down yet. There had been far too many feelings in the past few days for her taste, and to be honest, she’s looking forward to the opportunity to talk them through with Kara. Something about Kara…she’s always been able to make Lena feel safe, able to be vulnerable without discomfort or fear. At first, she thought it was solely because she was in love with Kara, but now she’s starting to wonder if it’s merely a trait of the Danvers sisters, because Alex has managed, in the past couple weeks, to elicit the same feeling.

And she isn’t really sure what to make of that.

Noticing she’s already stalled three minutes past her designated half hour, Lena bites her lip and calls Kara before she has any more opportunities to second guess herself.

Kara picks up after a ring and a half.

“Lena,” she breathes, sounding way more relieved than expected. “Hi. Hi. How are you? Are you okay?”

“I’m…I’m okay.”

There’s a brief pause. “Are you sure you want to do this? We don’t have to. I totally get it if you’d rather—I was in a _coma_ , you’re probably—”

“No, Kara, it’s okay. I want to do this.”

She breathes another sigh of relief. “Okay. Okay.” Then she hesitates before adding, “I’ve really missed you, Lena.”

Already feeling her lip quivering, Lena responds, “I’ve missed you too. A lot.”

“So,” Kara clears her throat. “I know we have a lot to talk about, but…Brainy said you and Alex got in a fight?”

Lena rolls her eyes—apparently, having a twelfth-level intellect doesn’t mean you know how to keep a damn secret. “It’s nothing, Kara. We made up.”

“Yeah, I—I know,” Kara admits sheepishly. “Alex told me about it. Sorry.”

She chuckles at that. “Nothing to apologize for, darling. She’s your sister.”

“I’m sorry I—” the alien cuts herself off, and Lena can almost hear her biting that beautiful pink lip of hers. “I know it wasn’t my fault, technically, but I’m sorry I worried you. I’m sorry I got hurt and I’m sorry I didn’t come back sooner.”

“Kara, my love,” she soothes. “None of that was your fault. _I’m_ sorry—I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you, wasn’t there for either of you, when you both needed support. I’m not—” She closes her eyes, bracing herself for her impending display of vulnerability. “I’m not used to people caring if I’m there for them. I’m not used to people… _wanting_ me there, with them.”

“Lena,” Kara utters, her earnestness ripping Lena’s soul apart. “I want you here with me all the time.”

The CEO’s only response is a sharp intake of air, and Kara stammers a bit, hesitating and then finally asking, “Is that okay to say?”

“Yes, of course,” Lena gulps. “I want you to be honest with me, all the time. I like that you feel safe with me. It makes me…happy.”

That is true, of course, but she does choose to leave out the part where it also causes her heart to ache and the deep pit of loss in her stomach to churn.

“In that case,” Kara transitions, clearing her throat, and Lena can envision the steely, tenacious look on her face, the crinkle between her hard-set eyebrows. “I have to tell you something.”

The raven-haired woman’s thoughts spiral instantaneously. She thinks the worst within milliseconds—is Kara already seeing someone else? Has she reconsidered their arrangement? Does she not even want to be friends anymore?

Preparing for the worst, Lena merely responds, “Anything, darling. I’m here.”

“I’m…hmph.” She clears a throat again, evidently readying herself for what she’s about to say, but Lena’s actually glad for it, because it means she probably isn’t focused on listening across the city for the younger woman’s heartbeat, which is pounding fast and heavy.

“It’s okay, Kara. Whatever it is, you can tell me.”

Kara takes another few seconds. To her credit, she doesn’t stutter or stammer anymore, doesn’t attempt to make any sounds until she’s entirely ready to speak the ones she intends to.

“I’m asexual.”

And God, Lena’s known that for a while. She’s known that for weeks, she’s even heard Alex admit it, but she’s never heard Kara say the word aloud, she’s never had the experience of Kara really, _truly_ coming out to her, of speaking her reality for Lena to hear, and it’s even more overwhelming than she would have expected. Hearing her perfect blonde alien say her truth, it…it feels too much to handle.

But she knows she can’t bask in it all for too long. She knows it’s even more overwhelming for Kara to say as it for Lena to hear, and thus, she does everything she can to compose herself as quickly as possible so as to voice the first and most prevalent reaction she has to Kara’s frankness.

“Thank you for telling me,” she says, her voice more quavering and emotional than she’d have liked, but fuck it. “Thank you for telling me, and trusting me, and I _love_ you, and I’m so, so proud of you.”

Kara is quiet a second, and it causes Lena’s chest to tighten.

“I promise, Kara. I love you, and I’m proud of you. I’m so _happy_. I’m happy for you. I’m happy you get to be yourself, that you get to be comfortable and free and honest. And I’m happy you feel okay being yourself around me, especially given how…complicated it may seem on the surface. But I assure you, it’s very simple to me: I love you, and I’m proud of you, and I’m happy for you, and I will support you. Come hell or high water, even if it means the death of me, I will support you.”

All she hears as a reply is a shuddering, shaky inhale, and God, Lena wants nothing more than to be next to the vulnerable blonde alien, wants nothing more than to wrap her up in her arms and prove to her just how much she means her words—but she has to think long-term, and in order to think long-term, she has to, ever-so-briefly, prioritize self-preservation.

And if she holds Kara right now, she knows she’ll wish, yearn, dream for things to go further.

Which isn’t fair to Kara.

Sweet, pure, kind, understanding Kara. Kara who’s already forgiven her—beyond that, apparently it didn’t even occur to her at all to even be angry with Lena—for the Luthor’s failure, failure to support, to remain loyal, to stand by her chosen family during the roughest of times.

Family means a lot to Kara. Lena knows that, and yet she still betrayed her family.

So the fact that Kara hasn’t even expressed the tiniest bit of anger or disappointment at Lena’s actions? That jostles Lena. She doesn’t know whether she should feel reassured or disconcerted. Instead, she chooses not to think about it.

When Kara finally speaks, her voice is as small and helpless as her reply is unexpected.

“I like that you and Alex are friends now.”

Lena allows herself a meek smile, knowing that the other woman can’t see it. “Me too.”

“You need more time and space, don’t you?”

The question is so blunt and matter-of-fact that it almost comes across as a statement, and Lena momentarily regrets pushing the alien into a career of journalism, because she’s clearly a natural and has already very much gotten the hang of it.

“Sometimes I wish you didn’t know me so well,” the CEO chuckles darkly. “It’s not like before. I don’t want radio silence, I just…I think we should ease into things, you know?”

“Oh,” Kara mutters sadly, the pout starting to be audible in her voice, so Lena steadies herself against it. “Like what?”

“I’m going to be in CatCo all next week.”

“Oh,” the reporter repeats. “I’ll be splitting my time. With Reign, and all.”

“Right. But when we see each other at the office this week, I’d like us to be able to talk. Just friendly office chatting.”

“Really?”

The excitement in Kara’s voice reminds Lena of an energetic puppy who’s just realized it's about to go on a walk or get a treat, and she can’t help but feel like she’s causing the best, purest woman in the universe undue hardship. Already, she knows she doesn’t deserve this goodness in her life, and now that it’s here, what is she doing with it but squandering and squashing it?

So she relents a bit more.

“And maybe, if you’re up for it…you could start texting me again, after Supergirl emergencies, to tell me if you’re safe or not? I’d appreciate once again getting the ‘all clear’ from you, rather than secondhand. As much as I’ve loved hearing from Alex.”

A beat.

“I mean—you _know_ what I mean. I’d much rather hear it from you. For my own peace of mind.”

Kara clicks her tongue slightly. “Right. Of course. Yeah, I can do that.” Then she takes her turn hesitating. “Can I text you for other things, or just that thing?”

She glues her eyes shut, trying not to picture the deflated look on Kara’s face. Because it should be so easy, for her to just say yes, of _course_ , but she knows her beautiful, excitable, alien manifestation of a golden retriever all too well. She recalls, all too well, the sheer volume of gleeful, all-caps, emoji-riddled text messages Kara used to send her throughout the day—pictures of food, pictures of cute animals, short digests of articles she’d read and thought Lena would enjoy, adorable selfies, reminders to eat, reminders to sleep, reminders to stop working so hard. She recalls all too well how gregarious Kara is through text, and she recalls all too well how every single time her phone dinged with a text from Kara, a smile broke out over her face. It didn’t matter if it was the first time or the fiftieth time she’d texted that day, Lena would smile, and her heart would flutter, and even if she was too busy or distracted to reply or even check the alert, it would make her fall in love with Kara all over again just to hear the special notification tone she has picked out for her alien.

So, giving carte blanche with respect to texting probably isn’t the best idea right now.

“Let’s start with the proof of life updates and go from there, okay? If I…” She sighs, reticent to open the can of worms she’s gradually twisting loose. “If I reply with a heart emoji, it means I acknowledge your text but don’t want the conversation to continue. If I reply with something else, then you’re free to do the same.”

Kara likes rules; she tries to remind herself that. Kara likes rules as much as Lena likes rules. She likes rules and boundaries and she would hate it if she overstepped because she didn’t understand, so it’s only fair of Lena to explicitly lay out rules, so as to reduce the anxiety and pressure for both of them.

“Okay,” the blonde breathes, almost sounding relieved at the specific guidelines. “I can do that. If it changes, you’ll tell me?”

“Always, my love.” Lena winces. “Should I stop calling you that?”

“No! I like it when you call me that.”

“Good. Okay.”

“So when I see you at CatCo, I get to say hi. Do I get to ask how you are?”

“Of course you do, Kara.”

“And will you tell me the truth?”

Lena grimaces. “To the best of my ability given our surroundings. I don’t believe it’s necessary for a random assortment of my employees to know intimate details about my life. But yes—I will be honest with you, as I hope you will be with me.”

“Always.” She pauses. “Do I get to hug you?”

Tears start to burn behind green eyes. “We’ll…let’s work up to that, okay? I really want—God, I want to hug you, Kara. Probably a little too much.”

Kara’s breath sounds shaky, and it pushes Lena’s tears over the edge until one freely falls down her pale cheek. “I’m so sorry, Lena.”

“Stop that,” she orders, but her tone lacks its usual command, as it’s audibly laced with tears. “I love you and I’m proud of you and there’s nothing to be sorry for. It will take time, but we will get through this. I promise you that.”

She hears a sniff on the other end of the line. “Thank you.”

“So the next time you apologize for being yourself, or for being honest with yourself and with me, I’ll have you fired. Cat Grant be damned.”

Kara released a watery chuckle at Lena’s obviously empty threat, and hearing her laugh, even that tiny, still-sad one, brings peace to Lena’s troubled soul.

“I know it hurts, darling,” she acknowledges, her volume barely above a breath, but never fearing that it will go unheard by her Kryptonian goddess. “It hurts me too. I miss you and our friendship every single day. That’s never been a question. But I also miss our relationship, our _sexual_ relationship, and since that can’t happen anymore, I need time to grieve. To separate those two entities.”

“I understand,” Kara mumbles despondently.

“But you’re not getting rid of me any time soon. Or ever, for that matter. I’m here for the duration, and nothing can change that. Unless…”

“Never!” the reporter clarifies quickly. “Never, not in a million years. I’m here for the duration too. Nothing can ever change that, nothing.”

“Good. Then we’re on the same page.”

“Good,” Kara says in that bright, infectiously joyful way that never fails to bring a smile to Lena’s face. “So…can I hear about your life the last couple weeks?”

Lena furrows her eyebrows. “I’m not sure how much I can tell you that you haven’t already heard from Alex.”

“Alex hasn’t told me anything. She says she doesn’t want to invade your privacy, so she really doesn’t share many details with me.”

She chuckles at that. “Remind me to have a conversation with Alex about that. As for now…sure, I’ll tell you a bit about how I’ve been, provided you tell me what it’s like to heat vision a Nazi and be stuck in the prison of your own mind.”

“Awesome and terrifying.”

“I’m afraid I’ll need more than that.”

“You first.”

They stay on the phone about an hour until Snapper Carr demands Kara’s immediate attention, and the cub reporter is forced to say goodbye. The second she hangs up, Lena finds herself…longing.

It feels like over the course of one phone call, she managed to undo all the compartmentalizing and distancing that she achieved over the past two weeks. All her feelings hit her at once—the grief, the heartbreak, the anxiety, the existential anger of _why is this happening to me_ , the shame and guilt and self-hatred and the _blame_ and fuck, it’s way too much. It’s so much that within thirty seconds of hanging up, the raven-haired headcase finds herself sitting on her floor, hyperventilating, shoving her face between her knees in a desperate attempt to stop the world from spinning.

However long she sits there, she doesn’t know, but she’s eventually interrupted by her phone ringing. She answers it blindly, hoping, _praying_ that it’s a work emergency, some rational, logical, cut-and-dry problem that she can distract herself with, ground herself with, because she doesn’t know if she can bear having to deal with anything else, right now.

“So you know those Lifetime movies? The ones with the perfect, innocent, straight-A student, who’s always also like a swimmer or a musician, and she’s got, like, a middle part and a working mom, and a girl she’s been friends with since kindergarten, but the friend is wild now, and hangs out with older boys, and she drags the innocent middle part girl to a cool kid party where she’s peer-pressured into doing drugs and/or having oral sex, and then within forty-five minutes her whole perfect life is ruined forever?”

Lena can’t help the laugh that escapes her following Alex Danvers’s extraordinarily strange greeting, but eventually, through her giggling, she manages to confirm, “Yes, yes, I’m familiar.”

“I’ll admit, Lifetime movies are kind of a guilty pleasure of mine. I’ve been avoiding them the last year or so, because a lot of them involve stalking, which happens to be a bit of a sore spot for me, but—anyway. Today’s Lifetime movie marathon just so happens to be nothing but good girls going bad and getting syphilis while lying to their acutely suspicious mothers. And I just so happen to be couch-bound and in need of some mind-numbing entertainment. I also happen to be in search of company.”

Her lips quirk up into a brief smirk. “That’s quite an elaborate invitation to essentially come to your apartment and watch made-for-TV movies with you.”

“What can I say? Less than twenty-four hours off-duty and I’m already going crazy. So, are you in?”

Shaking her head, she sighs, “I’ll be there within an hour. Can I bring you anything?”

“Do you have any fancy tech to get rid of the itching underneath my cast?”

“No.”

“Then no, just bring yourself.”

Miraculously, watching god-awful Lifetime movies with Alex while day-drinking wine turns out to be exactly what Lena needs. They only get through a movie and a half, though, until Lena is harshly reminded of the fact that she hasn’t eaten since Eve forced a salad upon her yesterday at lunch.

She insists upon paying for the massive quantities of takeout, but even after she places the order, her stomach rumbles loudly. Alex chuckles at the sound.

“Go into the nightstand on the right side of my bed. Second drawer.”

Lena raises an impeccable eyebrow. “You want me to get your sex toys?”

Alex snorts, rolling her eyes. “No. My sex toys are in a fireproof safe underneath my bed.”

“Let me guess, there’s lead in the lining?”

Smirking, she chooses to ignore that comment, and instead offers up, “When Kara sleeps over, she hogs the right side of the bed.”

Lena gasps. “You have a bedside snack drawer for Kara, too?”

“Everyone who has ever loved Kara has a bedside snack drawer for her.”

Narrowing her eyes slightly, the businesswoman asks, “You wouldn’t happen to have a bag of white cheddar popcorn in there, would you?”

“I’m honestly offended that you think I don’t know my sister enough to have white cheddar popcorn in her snack drawer.”

And a few minutes later, when Lena finds herself sitting next to Alex, sharing a bag of popcorn as an appetizer to their impending food delivery, drinking wine together, and unreservedly making fun of the terrible movie on TV, she starts to forget about how painful it was to talk to Kara this morning.

Starts to, at least.


	7. the beatings just get harder and we'll never grow them out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex Danvers is a caretaker, a protector. She's built for it, and frankly, though she pretends to complain, she lives for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since this chapter is mostly to move the plot along, I thought I'd take the opportunity to offer you some insight into where Alex's mind is at in all this. I hope you enjoy, and thank you as always for reading.

Alex’s day started out as total shit.

Not only did it start out with her leg _still_ being in a cast (honestly, it’s been four days, shouldn’t her tibia be not snapped in half anymore?), but it also started out rather jarringly, as she was awoken by a call from her infuriated mother.

“First Kara was in a coma and you didn’t think to call me, now I find out that you broke your leg on the job and you didn’t think to call me about that, either?!”

“Mom,” Alex sighed, exasperated, uncaffeinated, not prepared for this conversation. “If I called you every time Kara or I got injured on the job, we’d both have to upgrade our phone plans.”

Well, let’s just say that didn’t do much to placate Eliza Danvers.

So, her day started out shitty, but then Kara and Sam and Ruby came to visit her, and then she offered to help out Sam by watching Ruby after their babysitter canceled, so, frankly, it’s looking up. Ruby’s been hanging with her for a couple hours, and so far, the young teen seems to be enjoying herself, and Alex definitely is, so she starts to think she wrote off this day too quickly.

Then she gets the text from Kara.

_‘Going into space for a few hours. Don’t freak out. Text you when I get back <3’_

So yeah, maybe she was correct in writing this day off.

“Hey, Ruby,” she pipes, her voice a little strained, the muscles in her neck tense and likely bulging a bit. “I’m gonna go out on the balcony for a couple minutes to check in on work, will you be okay for a few minutes?”

“Yeah, no problem,” Ruby smiles brightly. “I’ll tell you what you miss in the movie.”

“Oh, thanks, kiddo, but don't worry, I've seen it before. You just enjoy.”

Squaring her jaw, Alex picks up her crutches and makes a beeline to the balcony, calling Kara as soon as she’s on the other side of the door.

It goes to directly to voicemail.

“I swear to fucking God, Kara,” she murmurs to herself, trying to call her sister again, only to achieve the same result.

She takes a breath, considering her options. She could call J’onn, but he’ll just be mad at her for trying to work while “incapacitated,” and he’ll probably refuse to give her any information.

She could let it go, trust that her sister is safe and out of harm’s way and—yeah, she laughs out loud halfway through merely considering that line of action.

So, she opts for her best choice.

“Alex!” Winn’s voice hisses as soon as he picks up the phone. “You’re off-duty, J’onn _and_ Kara both specifically told me I’m not supposed to take your calls.”

“Give me a sitrep on Kara’s mission. Now.”

“Alex, I _can’t_ , I—”

“Agent Schott,” she snarls, channeling every ounce of the rage that her anxiety has transformed into. “Sitrep. Now.”

“But—”

“You better tell me where my sister is going, why she’s going there, and who she’s going with. Now.”

Her voice is so terrifyingly calm and level that Winn capitulates, confessing to the fact that Supergirl is headed to a distant blue star on the Legion Cruiser with Imra, Livewire, and Psi in order to board Fort Rozz and interrogate an ancient, evil priestess. When he finishes his report, Alex is grimly silent for several seconds.

“You,” she growls. “sent my sister into space, to a star system where she won’t have her powers, and you sent her ex-boyfriend’s wife and her two arch nemeses with her…and you thought this was a good idea?”

“It wasn’t my idea!” Winn rushes to clarify. “I promise, J’onn and I were against it, but Kara—”

“Obviously I know it wasn’t _your_ idea, but I leave the DEO for three days and you two let my sister carry out whatever crazy, idiotic death wish she cooks up?!”

“I—”

“You better hope nothing happens to her, Agent Schott, or I promise you, I will kick your ass so hard you’ll thank gods you don’t even pray to that I only have one working leg.”

“You know,” Winn squeaks indignantly. “You really don’t have to threaten me, I am already _very_ scared of you.”

And Alex might have smirked at that, but not only do her nerves overtake everything else, but at the moment she’s supposed to retort, her phone beeps to alert her of another call.

“I have to go. I want updates every half hour.”

“Fine. But this isn’t my fau—!”

Alex cuts off his objections by hanging up on him and transferring to the incoming call without checking who it is, so she answers a little curtly, “Danvers.”

“Hey, Alex. Is…is everything all right?”

She exhales at the sound of Lena’s voice, feeling the tight coil of tension within her body loosen just a bit. “Hey. Yeah, I just—it’s a long story, it can wait. What’s up?”

“I’m sure this is a longshot,” she begins, and Alex recognizes a sort of veiled panic in her voice that she knows better than most people probably do. “But Sam told me she planned to stop by your place before she left for her meeting today, and I was just wondering if you saw her.”

“Yeah,” Alex confirms, eyebrows furrowing in confusion. “Yeah, she stopped by this morning to bring me food, and then freaked out cuz her babysitter texted her and said she was sick and she had nobody to watch Ruby, so I offered to spend the day with her. Is…is something wrong?”

“You’re with Ruby? Right now? She’s with you?”

“Yeah. Well, I’m out on the balcony, and she’s in the apartment, but yeah, I’m watching her. What…what’s going on, Lena?”

Lena takes a full, slow breath. “I ordered a car for Sam today, to get her to the airport. She never got in it.”

Alex’s stomach drops. “What?”

“She never got in the car, and the airline says she never checked in for her flight. Takeoff was over an hour ago. I’ve been calling her, and texting her, and…nothing.”

She falls back, leaning her weight against the exterior wall of her apartment, feeling herself switching from panic mode to problem-solving mode. “Okay. Okay. You tracked her phone?”

“It’s turned off.”

“We will figure this out, I promise you, Lena. I promise you. I’m gonna call J’onn and Winn and get them to help us out.”

“Alex, we don’t even know if it’s an alien threat.”

“Doesn’t matter,” the agent asserts. “She’s family. And besides, it’s in their best interest to get on my good side right now.”

“What about Kara?”

Alex bites her lip. “Kara is…off-world. For reasons not unrelated to why J’onn and Winn owe me.” She shoots a look into her apartment, where Ruby keeps eyeing her subtly, presumably starting to get curious why a simple work check-in is taking so long. “Look, I’m gonna have J’onn and Winn contact you. I’m not of much use right now, anyway, so I think it’s best if I stay back and keep Ruby safe and occupied.”

“What if someone is after Sam? They might come after Ruby next, and if you’re—”

“Lena, a broken leg isn’t gonna stop me from protecting that girl with all I have. Besides, I already planned to teach her how to throw a punch without breaking her thumb. All the more motivation to do so.”

The younger woman chuckles nervously. “I don’t know what to do here, Alex. I’m not used to—she could really be in danger, or it could be something like her mother had a heart attack and she’s too busy panicking and taking care of things to call me. I don’t…I don’t know what to do here.”

“That’s why you have me,” Alex reassures her, calmly, gently. “Okay? We’re gonna find her, and we’re gonna help her. Whether or not we need to save her from kidnappers or send her flowers, we’re gonna help her. I’m gonna stay with Ruby, make sure she’s not too freaked out unless there’s a real reason to be, and you’re gonna tell the DEO everything you can think of that might help find Sam, and then they’re gonna take care of it. And if you need anything, you call me. Okay? I’m right here, I’m gonna be right here for you.”

A slow, relieved exhale, and then, “Thank you, Alex.”

“You did the right thing,” the agent smiles. “If Sam is in trouble, then we’ll know a lot sooner because you called me and asked for help. You did the right thing.”

Part of her knows she probably sounds like a semi-condescending cop trying to pacify a distressed witness, but also, it seems to be working, so she lets it be.

“Okay,” Lena gulps. “Okay.”

“I’m gonna hang up now so I can get J’onn and Winn briefed and in touch with you. But if you need anything— _anything_ , I mean it—you call or text me and I’ll be here to help you, okay?”

“Thank you.”

She hangs up on Lena, and it takes no time at all to convince her Space Dad to take up the case of the missing Arias, so she quickly schools her expression, resets her crutches under her arms, and heads back in the apartment.

“Sorry, Ruby, that took longer than I expected,” she says with the brightest smile she can muster.

“Is everything okay?”

“Oh, Supergirl is heading into space on a mission and needed my advice on some stuff,” Alex fibs, hoping the casual name-dropping will sufficiently distract the perceptive girl from picking up on anything else.

The kid’s face lights up, and Alex can see the beginnings of a million questions flying into her head. “Supergirl is going into space?! Where? Why? Can she fly in space, or does she need a spaceship? What does her spaceship look like? What did she want advice with? Supergirl _asks_ _you_ for _advice_?”

Mission accomplished.

\----

Unfortunately, Alex’s day just trends downhill from there.

Sure, it’s satisfying to pose as an FBI agent to scare a teenage mean girl into being nice for a change and to defend Ruby, and hanging out with Ruby is cool, but other than that, she’s barraged by constant text messages from Lena and the DEO, giving her updates on Sam and Kara both, and then to top it all off, _Maggie_ of all people texts her and wow wow wow, it’s really been quite a day.

It’s almost time for Sam to come pick up Ruby, and to be honest, Alex is nervous. If she doesn’t show up, how is she supposed to explain to this smart, sensitive girl that her mom’s been missing all day and she knew about it and has been hiding it from her, and also yeah, her mom is still missing and nobody has any idea where she is.

Then there’s a knock on the door, and Ruby is saying, “Oh, that’s probably my mom.”

And Ruby is _right_.

In walks Sam Arias, looking no different than she did when she walked out hours ago, no worse for the wear, not a scratch on her, _smiling_ , even.

Alex is…beyond words.

“Hey Mom!”

The girl runs to hug her mom, and Alex continues to gawk at them both, and Sam glances at her curiously, asking, “How was she?”

The agent sputters a moment before saying, “Oh, terrible. You raised a real monster of a kid.”

Sam laughs. “Yeah, she’s the worst, right?”

“We had so much fun, Alex is awesome!” Ruby grins, turning to the woman in question, who manages to quickly return the smile without giving away her deep, deep disorientation.

“Right, well, wanna go wait by the elevators for me, sweetie?”

“Sure, Mom.”

Ruby skips out of the apartment, but not before giving Alex a tight hug and thanking her again.

“See you soon, sweetie.”

As soon as the door closes behind the girl, both Sam and Alex start talking at the same time.

“Thank you so much again for—”

“Where the hell have you been?!”

Sam furrows her brows at Alex. “What are you talking about?”

“Lena’s been trying to reach you all day. She said you never got in the car, you never got on the plane, your phone was off. We had to call in the cavalry to find you, came up with nothing all day, and now you just walk in here like nothing?”

“What? I—” Her entire face falls. “I had a business trip. I know I had a business trip, but I…Alex, I never went anywhere. I don’t—”

She frantically reaches into her purse to dig out her cell phone, finding an endless stream of missed calls and worried texts staring back at her.

“Oh my God. You’re right, Lena, she—”

Alex’s anger and confusion transforms swiftly into concern. “Sam, do you know where you were today?”

“No! That’s what I’m saying, I…I was here, and then I wasn’t, and then I was just out in the hall to pick her up, I don’t—and last week, Ruby said I told her I was going on a trip, but I didn’t go anywhere. Or I don’t _remember_ going anywhere, at least. I—what the hell is happening to me, Alex?”

And Alex—forever the older sister, the protector, the take-care-of-it person—reaches out to place her hand on Sam’s arm, staring into those panicked hazel eyes and saying, honestly: “I don’t know. But we are going to figure it out, I promise. What I do know is Ruby is waiting for you to take her home, so I think you should do that, and then call me and we can figure out what to do next. And in the meantime, I’ll call Lena and tell her that you’re safe, and tell her what’s going on, and—”

“No!” Sam yelps. “You can’t tell her, she’ll be so beyond pissed with me. I basically abandoned her today, I probably lost her a ton of money skipping out on that meeting, and for no apparent reason. There’s no excuse, I can’t—you _can’t_ tell her.”

“Sam,” the redhead scoffs. “As soon as she figured out you didn’t get in the car, she assumed the worst. She thought you were dead in a ditch and that she, Kara, and I would all have to raise Ruby together. She won’t be upset with you once we explain to her what’s happening. She’ll just be happy you’re alive, and well enough. Besides, she’s not only one of your best friends, she’s a scientist; she’ll never forgive us if we don’t let her help us get to the bottom of this.”

Sam can’t help but smirk a little at that. “Okay. Okay. Maybe…maybe we can wait? I’d like to be there, when you tell her. I’ll call her tonight, and let her know I’m okay, but maybe we can all sit down and talk tomorrow? Try to figure it out?”

“Of course. Whatever you think is best.”

“And Kara, too. If…are they willing to be in the same room yet?”

Alex bites her lip. “I’ll see what I can do. Otherwise, you’ll just have to trust me that I’ll tell Kara everything she needs to know.”

“Thank you, Alex. I…this is terrifying. I don’t know what I’d do if I had to do this without friends.”

“You’ll never have to.”

After a hug and another round of hopeful comforts and gratitude, Sam leaves. Alex scrubs her face, glaring down at the stupid envelope with Maggie’s stupid passport, just as her phone buzzes with a text from Kara.

_‘I’m back. Is Ruby still with you?’_

Frowning at the curt message and lack of status report, Alex quickly replies, _‘No, Sam picked her up. Are you okay, are you hurt?’_

No more than three seconds after she presses send does she hear a _whoosh_ of air and the sound of boots landing on her balcony.

In the three or so years that Kara’s been Supergirl, Alex has grown familiar with these sounds. So familiar, in fact, that she can actually _tell_ what kind of mood her sister is in based on the way she lands on her balcony—a harder landing followed by frantic footsteps means she’s worried or in fight-mode, a harder landing followed by stompy steps means she’s pissed, a harder landing plus slow steps means she’s exhausted, et cetera.

Today, it’s a soft landing, followed by slow, shuffling steps.

Kara is sad.

So, ignoring the pain in her leg, Alex jumps up, meeting her sister halfway as she enters in from the balcony, immediately greeting her by wrapping her arms tightly around the sullen superhero.

“What’s wrong?”

“Leslie is dead,” Kara sniffs, burying her face into Alex’s shoulder. “And it’s my fault.”

The older woman sighs, moves one hand up to stroke blonde curls. “Come here, let it out.”

But Kara barely gets started crying before Alex’s phone begins vibrating incessantly. Both their eyes track over to find Lena Luthor’s name lit up on the screen.

Alex really can’t get a second of damn rest today, can she?

She reaches out to pick up the phone, asking Lena to hold on a second before turning back to her sister.

“I’m so sorry, Kara. I have to take this, I’ll explain everything after. Do you wanna take a shower, maybe, and put on something comfy? We’ll order pizza and have a sister night. All the couch cuddles you could ever ask for, guaranteed.”

Kara nods, sniffling, eyeing the muted phone in Alex’s hand. “Is she okay?”

“She’s safe. I swear. I’d never lie to you about her.”

“Thanks,” she mutters forlornly, shuffling off to the bathroom. Alex watches her little sister go—barely resisting the urge to wrap her in a blanket and a hug and keep her there forever and never let anything remotely bad come near her ever again for the rest of her life—until the bathroom door closes and she has to turn her attention to her friend.

“Hi, Lena, sorry. Kara just got here, I had to explain—”

“You have a _lot_ to explain, Agent Danvers.”

The redhead nearly flinches at her tone. “Sam called you?”

“Yes, she did, and somehow I’m more confused and concerned than I was when I thought she was kidnapped and being tortured. What the hell is going on?”

“To be honest, we don’t know. Tomorrow, we’re gonna sit down and tell you everything, and we’ll all work it out together. For now, the important thing is that Sam is safe, and alive, and apparently unharmed, and so is Ruby. That’s what important; that, and the fact that she has me, and you, and Kara on her side, and we will figure this out.”

“Alex, you’re scaring the crap out of me,” Lena chokes. “Please, tell me what’s going on.”

“She wants to tell you in person, and I’m not gonna defy her wishes. We’ll all get together tomorrow morning, and we’ll tell you everything,” Alex sighs. “She, um. She also wants Kara there, when we all talk. If you’re okay with that.”

Lena hesitates, but eventually says, “Barring emergencies, right? That doesn’t just apply to her and I, it applies to our whole family.”

Alex’s stomach flutters a bit at that, a smile twitching across her lips. “Right. So you’re okay if Kara and I come by L-Corp tomorrow morning so we can talk it over?”

“Of course.”

“Cool. I’ll text Sam and arrange everything.”

“Is Kara okay?” Lena blurts out. “You’ve been really…withholding, today, when it comes to information about her. You’d tell me if there were anything to worry about, right?”

Alex pinches the bridge of her nose. “Kara went on a mission today, to look for information on Reign and the other Worldkillers. She…I don’t know the whole story yet, but there was a casualty, and she’s taking it hard.”

“That’s it?”

“As far as I know. Just another case of Kara being too kind-hearted for her own good.”

Lena chuckles hollowly. “It sounds like you’ve had quite a day, Dr. Agent Alex Danvers.”

“You don’t know the half of it, Luthor.”

“Did all the worrying and problem-solving completely take all the fun out of spending a day with Ruby, or did you still get to enjoy it?”

Alex finds herself smiling, not only at the memories of her day as Cool Aunt, but at Lena’s display of affection and familiarity. “Nah, I managed to enjoy it. How could you not enjoy hanging out with the coolest kid in the world?”

“I bet she feels the same way about you,” Lena muses, and Alex is quite pleased that the other woman can’t see the generous blush spreading over her face at the compliment.

“Um. Kara’s almost out of the shower, I should—she needs me. You promise you’re okay seeing her tomorrow?”

“Like I said,” Lena replies, her voice smoother than imaginable. “Some things are more important.”

“Right,” Alex gulps, trying very, _very_ hard to not react to the tone of Lena’s voice, to avoid the tightening in her chest that seems to occur reflexively to those dulcet tones. “I’m sorry, by the way. That I haven’t been around for you.”

“Oh, Agent Danvers,” Lena lilts. “You’ve never not been there for me. I doubt you’ve ever not been there for anyone.”

Reluctant to accept the praise, Alex chuckles wryly, retorting, “Double negatives are confusing.”

Lena returns the small laugh. “Well, they’re not _not_ confusing.”

There’s an extended moment of silence, but it’s not awkward. It’s warm, comfortable. Fond, even.

Before she can get too comfortable in it, however, Alex clears her throat, declaring, in no uncertain terms, “Right. Well, I should go take care of our girl.”

“Of course,” Lena agrees. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Can’t wait,” she replies without thinking, cursing herself for her forwardness.

 _Baby sister’s ex-girlfriend_ , Alex chides herself, sternly. (Internally, because she’s spent over a decade with a Kryptonian sister who hears every word she mumbles under her breath, so Alex has gotten used to reprimanding herself in her thoughts, as opposed to talking to herself.)

 _Baby sister’s ex-girlfriend_.

She got to her first, because she wasn’t scared, she wasn’t waiting for someone to push her—or well, she _was,_ but that person was Alex. Alex was the one to push Kara and Lena together, because—

Well, if she’s being honest, Alex doesn’t really know why she pushed Lena and Kara together.

She was with Maggie at the time. She was with Maggie, and she loved Maggie, and she thought it would be forever.

She also thought that Kara and Lena would be forever.

But none of that matters now.

Because even if she and Maggie are broken up, and even if Lena and Kara are broken up, that doesn’t matter, because you can’t hit on your baby sister’s ex-girlfriend, especially not if they’re still vaguely together, maybe, in a non-traditional sense, and especially not if they’re both still super in love with each other.

And that’s the only thing that matters.

So Alex pockets her phone and hobbles over to the bathroom door, asking her sister, “Two pizzas or three?”

“Three,” her tiny, despondent voice calls back over the sound of the shower.

 _Great_ , Alex thinks. _That kinda night_.

She’d been all prepared to spend her evening yelling at Kara, tearing her a new one for going into space without powers or adequate backup, but now she has to change gears and comfort her self-destructive little sister before she drowns in her own misplaced guilt.

Luckily, taking care of her sister—mentally, emotionally, physically—is second nature. It’s her automatic, her reflex, and she wouldn’t have it any other way.

So by the time Kara emerges from the bathroom amidst a cloud of steam, Alex has already ordered food, opened a bottle of wine, and poured them each glasses. The alien offers her a small pout, her wet curls still hanging limply around her sad face, and trudges over to the couch.

“You shouldn’t be up and moving around so much,” she mutters, fisting her hands around the ends of her too-long sleeves. The faded sweatshirt is old and well-worn, but still warm and soft and comfortable. Alex is pretty sure it once belonged to a boy she briefly dated in grad school, but he never claimed it after leaving it at her place following one of their drunken trysts, and she just never cared enough to get rid of it, so somehow, it became Kara’s go-to garment when she’s sad at Alex’s apartment. It’s adorably oversized on the skinny alien, and it reminds Alex of when she first got to Earth and didn’t have clothes of her own, so the first night, when she went to bed, she wore an old shirt of Jeremiah’s that nearly reached her knobby knees, and she couldn’t fall asleep because she was so scared, and Alex—feeling sorry for this girl who looked her age but acted like a small child—let Kara crawl into bed with her, and they stayed up all night talking, comparing worlds.

And ever since, Kara has been her entire world.

“I’m fine,” the older sister smirks, offering her a glass of wine. “I ordered the pizzas, but if you can’t wait, Lena replenished your snack drawer.”

The crinkle forms between blonde eyebrows. “Lena? What?”

Alex winces. Apparently after all the chaos of the day, she’s forgotten how to filter her words. “Yeah. She, um. She came over Friday and felt bad because she ate some of your snacks, so the next day she showed up with new stock.”

“She was here Friday?”

“Yeah,” she admits sheepishly. “After you called to tell me about the talk you two had, I figured she’d be upset, so I made up a dumb excuse to call her and invite her over so she wouldn’t have to be alone.”

“Oh,” Kara hums, rounding the couch to sit down next to Alex, curling up against her side, tucking her feet underneath her body. “You’ve been spending a lot of time with her, huh?”

“Yeah. I mean, you asked me to. But if you want me to stop, I can—”

“No! No, Alex, that’s not what I mean. I just…I’m happy. That you have each other.”

“Hey, you still got me, too. I’m not going anywhere. And you still have Lena, it’s just gonna take a little more time.”

Kara nods, her hair leaving a damp patch on the shoulder of Alex’s shirt.

“Wanna tell me what happened at Fort Rozz today, or would you rather I tell you about my day first?”

“You first,” she mutters, sipping her wine, and Alex smirks, throwing her arm around her sister’s balled-up body.

“Sam went missing.”

“What?!” Kara gasps, jumping up so quickly Alex actually missed the movement, just notices her arm floating over the empty air where her sister used to be. “Why didn’t you tell me? Have you called—?”

“She’s fine. I think.”

Suspicious still, the superhero sits back down, nonetheless, and patiently, quietly, listens to the story.

“That’s really weird,” Kara muses, rearranging herself so her head is in Alex’s lap, staring up at her older sister’s face. “What do you think is the matter with her?”

“It could be anything,” she sighs, reaching out with her non-wine hand to comb through Kara’s drying curls with her fingers. “I mean, it could just be stress, or caffeine-withdrawal, or migraines, even.”

“Or it could be something more serious,” Kara counters, using the tone she always did when she caught Alex trying to sugarcoat something. “Right? Like a brain tumor, or some kind of serious psychological problem, right?”

“We won’t know until we run some tests,” she says. “But Lena and I are gonna figure it out. We’re two brilliant scientists who also happen to be extremely loyal and dedicated to our friends, so we will do whatever it takes to figure out what’s going on with Sam and fix it.”

“So that’s why Lena called you earlier? To check on Sam?”

“Sam wants to talk to us all, tomorrow. We’re gonna go to L-Corp in the morning and talk about everything. So I had to check with Lena that she was okay with…you know.”

“Being around me,” Kara pouts, moving to push her glasses up her nose before realizing they aren’t there. “Why did I have to ruin everything?”

“Oh, hon,” Alex shushes. “It’s not your fault you’re so damn loveable. Maybe try to be a little less perfect going forward, huh?”

Kara snorts, rolling her eyes at her sister. “I’m not perfect.”

“No, of course not. Nobody is. But you’re pretty close.”

When her sister doesn’t respond other than to burrow her face into her lap, Alex pulls a blanket from over the back of the couch and tucks it around Kara’s body.

“Wanna tell me what happened on Fort Rozz today?”

“Reign showed up,” Kara sniffles. “She doesn’t need a yellow sun to have powers.”

Alex’s blood chills with that information, but she keeps a straight face while her little sister continues to get the story of the day off her chest, to tell her biased account of how Livewire ended up dead.

Luckily, from years of experience, the older Danvers knows exactly how to translate Kara’s account of any story into a factual one, and she can quickly decipher than no, her alien sister wasn’t really to blame at all.

She was just trying to do good, like always, and in doing so, she inspired another person to do good, like always, but this time, doing good got that person killed.

The thing is, Alex also knows something else about Kara: there’s nothing she can say to make her kind-hearted alien sister feel less guilty. Kara still blames herself, somehow, for the death of Krypton—so there’s nothing Alex can feasibly do to assuage her guilt over the death of Livewire.

Years ago, Alex might have tried.

But she knows better, now, so instead of sweet, exculpatory words, she instead offers quiet, soothing touches. She offers love, comfort, promises that no matter the mistakes that are made, they still have each other.

Because Alex needs those, too.

Alex has killed people, and not in the abstract.

She’s no stranger to Kara’s guilt; in fact, she’s perhaps felt it even more so, even more pronounced and relevant and pervasive. Sure, lives have been lost because of Kara, but Alex has _taken_ lives.

Yet her sister would still sit by her side, and have her back, even if Alex maybe doesn't deserve it.

But Kara, Kara definitely deserves all that and more from her older sister, who is all too determined to provide it.

She pulls Kara’s torso up until her little sister is practically cradled in her lap, and she lets the blonde cry on her shoulder until she runs out of tears.

Which, coincidentally, just so happens to be right around the time the pizzas arrive.

By then, Kara seems eager to change the subject, so she asks Alex, “Did you have fun with Ruby today?”

“Yeah,” she grins. “She’s the best.”

“Does she know? About Sam?”

“I don’t know,” Alex sighs. “But I’m not sure how much longer Sam can get away with hiding it from her; that’s one perceptive kid she’s got.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Kara hums, demolishing a slice of pizza in the time it takes Alex to pick another one up. “So…you and Lena are friends, huh?”

“What?” the agent gulps. “I mean. Yeah. Sure. I guess. You—I mean, you told me to be. Her friend. So I am. Her friend.”

“Right,” Kara drawls, scrutinizing her sister.

“We have a lot in common. Science. Drinking. You. It works out.”

“Yeah, of course. Makes sense.”

Alex’s eyebrows furrow. “Why are you acting weird? Are you mad? Cuz I’ll stop hanging out with her, if you want.”

“No, of course I don’t want you to stop hanging out with her.” The eye roll is worthy of a soap opera. “I just—I’m happy. I’m happy you two get along so well. I wish I’d realized sooner how much you two… _have in common_.”

She huffs, taking a sip of wine while studying the superhero’s overly-schooled expression, the one she uses when she’s definitely, definitely acting weird.

“Why are you being so weird?” Alex whines, shoving the alien slightly, but her sister doesn’t budge, only snickers in response.

“I’m not being weird, you’re being weird. Pick a show before I eat all the pizza.”

Alex glares at her for a second, but then she softens, reaching out to cover Kara’s legs with more of the blanket they shared. As she turns on the television and powers up Netflix, she remains silent, but once she starts scrolling through shows, she asks, “How are you feeling? About the whole…Lena thing?”

Kara bristles a bit.

“If it’s too much, you don’t have to talk about it,” the redhead soothes, her voice as compassionate as they come. “But I want you to know, I’m still here. And if you tell me something you don’t want Lena to know, then you just tell me that.”

“No,” the Kryptonian jumps. “No, I know. I’m still okay with her knowing everything. I want her to know everything, and I know you wouldn’t ever tell her anything you think she should hear from me. I’m happy you two can be there for each other.”

“I’m here for _you_ , too. Always, first and foremost. You’re always my priority, Kara.”

And pouty pink lips smile back at her. “You’re my priority, too.”

“So are you gonna answer my question, or not?” Alex teases.

Kara shrugs, abandoning her food in a highly uncharacteristic manner so as to cuddle closer to her lifeline. “I just wish we could both have all the things we wanted without anyone having to be sad.”

“Yeah, and I wish Reign would spontaneously turn into Mother Teresa,” the agent chuckles. “This hurts, but it’s necessary pain. It’s gonna work out.”

“I want her to be happy.”

“She will be. Don’t worry.”

“And you will be, too,” Kara promises, and Alex sputters a moment.

“W-what?”

“You know,” the alien drawls. “With the whole Maggie breakup.”

 _Oh_. Alex’s heart sinks as repressed feelings bubble up and take all the available room on the surface of her being. “About that. She texted me today.”

“She—what? Way to bury the lede, Alex!”

“I’m not sure it is the lede,” she snorts, smoothing invisible wrinkles in her shirt for a second before chuckling dryly. “She just wanted me to mail her her passport. The text sounded more like a business transaction between two strangers than a conversation between two former fiancées.”

Kara clucks her tongue before reaching up with one hand to brush red hair behind Alex’s ear, her other arm staying firmly wrapped around Alex’s waist. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” the agent sighs, humming contently when Kara presses a light kiss to her shoulder. “It’s good, even. Closure. That chapter of my life is over and done with, and this has just confirmed that. Maggie and I are strangers now, and that’s okay. It’s good. I can…move on.”

“Yeah,” the blonde smiles back. “You can.”

Looking down at her still-gloomy sister, Alex rolls her eyes. “Okay, we can watch _Gilmore Girls,_ but you have to promise never to tell anyone I secretly like it.”

She grins triumphantly, pumping her fist in celebration before requesting, "Can we do one where Luke and Lorelai are together, though?"

"Duh."

They barely make it through two episodes before Kara falls asleep on Alex’s shoulder.

\----

“Of course you have an MRI machine in your lab,” Alex mutters to herself as Lena shows the group of women into the basement laboratory at L-Corp. “I’m also gonna need syringes, a centrifuge—ooh, what model hematology analyzer do you have?”

“L-Corp designed it. It’s state-of-the-art, don’t worry.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything less from you,” Alex teases, causing Lena to blush a bit and Sam and Kara to continue staring at the pair of scientists with confusion.

“Why do I feel like they’re just a little too excited to be running medical tests on me?” Sam murmurs to Kara as the elevator arrives at its destination and the women in question all but bolt out to don white coats, squabbling over who should do what.

“They’re just huge nerds,” Kara smiles in response. “Trust me, this is just them proving how much they care about you.”

“Should I mention I’m scared of needles?”

“If you manage to get a word in edgewise,” the blonde snorts, gesturing vaguely to her sister and best friend, who are clearly absorbed in some sort of exciting nerd conversation. They talk over each other, finish each other’s sentences, gesticulate animatedly, bicker, laugh, all faster than even Kara can keep up with, seemingly speaking a language beyond just scientific jargon, but one exclusive to their collaboration.

“Are they always like that?” Sam inquires, frowning curiously at the pair.

“I mean, I know they’ve gotten closer recently. Alex has been helping me take care of Lena while she’s needed space from me, but…”

“I don’t think this is Alex helping you take care of Lena,” the CFO ponders, crossing her arms over her chest as she studies the scene in front of her.

“I don’t think so, either,” Kara drawls in agreement. “It’s almost like they’re…”

“ _Flirting_ ,” Sam states emphatically, glancing askance at the blonde. “Would that…sorry. That would be weird, right?”

Kara’s crinkle makes an appearance between her eyebrows, but it is also accompanied by a small but bright smile. “Would it?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so maybe there's a little more to say about this chapter than I initially thought. My bad.


	8. i did not choose my life and i won't choose my death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena has a long day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's a little something to hopefully get you through the day.

“So…that wasn’t too awful, was it?”

Lena hums, sips her coffee. After running all the tests imaginable on Sam, she convinced Alex to let her take the two of them out to brunch at an ostentatiously fancy restaurant owned by a “friend” of L-Corp, where everything is ridiculously overpriced but they’re guaranteed a level of privacy which the Luthor strives for when dining out. She, of course, extended the invitation to Sam and Kara, as well, but the former insisted she needed to work (although Lena could swear there was no pressing chief-financial business to attend to that morning) just as the latter declared she desperately needed to return to CatCo (although based on the look on Alex’s face, that was either a blatant lie or a flimsy coverup for urgent Supergirl business).

“I assume you’re not asking about the part where Sam is almost obnoxiously healthy and we’ve found no apparent cause for her blackouts?”

“No,” Alex chuckles, pushing food around her plate. “I meant the part about seeing Kara.”

The CEO shrugs noncommittally. “We didn’t directly interact much, frankly. She was very respectful, kept her distance, didn’t push it. And as you know, once we got into the science of it all…”

“You completely tuned out the rest of the world, yes. I could tell.”

They smirk at each other, but Lena still sighs rather robustly. “I’m just…a bit thrown. I wish I knew what I could do, what would work. I don’t _want_ to keep spending so much time apart. I want her back in my life, but I don’t know what to do to make it hurt less.”

Now it’s Alex’s turn to shrug. “I mean, you could try moving on.”

Lena scoffs mockingly. “This from the girl who had a borderline existential crisis after a round of careless rebound sex?”

“Yeah, but once the crisis passed, I did feel better.”

“Well,” the dark-haired woman clears her throat, smoothing her napkin over her lap. “That’s much easier said than done, for me.”

“What do you mean?”

“As much as your career seems to depend on your anonymity and secrecy, my career apparently prohibits such liberties.”

The agent squints a bit.

“Face it, Alex. You, your sister, and Sam are the only women in the city willing to be seen within arm’s length of me.”

“So don’t date a woman.”

“Oh, yes. Because the way to uncomplicate my precedential reputation is by mixing it with the fragile male ego.”

Alex responds with an amused chortle. “I’m telling you, Lena. Twenty minutes in a queer bar and you’ll find the rebound of your dreams.”

“You’re insufferable,” Lena shakes her head. They continue in silence for a few moments before green eyes flit up to meet brown. “And what if I don’t want just a rebound?”

A strange look flashes across her tanner face before she replies, “Then that’s your choice. Whatever you want, Lena, I know you can have it. No matter how much you tell yourself otherwise. Anyone would be lucky as hell to have you. People should be fighting to the death just for a chance to maybe have you look at them.”

Lena rolls her eyes. “You’re absurd.”

“I mean it, Lena.”

Her mouth goes a little dry, and she can’t help but continue to argue, because otherwise she might have to address _feelings_. “I’m a Luthor. The press portrays me as either evil and corrupt or brilliant and intimidating—or in some cases, both. And if my name and legacy didn’t carry enough baggage by themselves, there’s the small fact that I’m still best friends with my asexual ex-girlfriend who I might also still be in love with. Not exactly a huge selling point for a prospective bedmate.”

Alex half-smiles, reaching across the table with her fork to stab some breakfast potatoes from her companion’s plate, apparently immune to the affronted eyebrow raise she receives as a result. “I get it. Well, sort of. It’s opposite situations; your dates already know too much about you before they’ve even met you, my dates can hardly learn anything about me before they’ve passed an extensive government background check and signed multiple NDAs. Somewhat contradictory scenarios, but very similar results.”

Lena chuckles mirthlessly. “Does it bother you, ever? Pretending to be an FBI agent, with a perfectly normal human sister whose parents died in a…a fire, was it?”

“Kara’s got it worse,” Alex mutters diffidently around a mouthful of Lena’s potatoes.

“That’s not what I asked.”

The agent’s eyes widen as she gulps down her food, only to have her mouth move uselessly for several seconds in futile attempts at speech. She appears so flustered that Lena worries, for a moment, that she was a bit too brusque, but since she doesn’t seem offended, just thrown, the poised businesswoman keeps her steel, waiting pointedly for a response to form.

“I…I’m not allowed to be bothered by it.”

With a tilt of her head, Lena quips, “You’re not allowed to have feelings if Kara has stronger feelings?”

“No,” Alex asserts without hesitation or doubt or really, anything short of utmost pride. “No, I’m not.”

Lena studies her with raised eyebrows before retorting, with the sharpest tongue she can manage, “Need I bother calling you a martyr anymore, or does it merely go without saying, at this point?”

Despite her friend’s reprimanding tone, Alex smirks, reaching again across the table, but this time abandoning all pretenses and simply drawing Lena’s ignored plate closer to her. “Just for that, I get your potatoes.”

“You’re worse than Kara sometimes.”

“Hey, growing up with an alien sister teaches you to never cast a blind eye to untouched food.”

“Apparently it teaches you more than that,” Lena deadpans, but Alex shoots her a look which makes it quite clear that if Lena presses, they will end up in an argument, so she instead chooses to return to the subject of Sam. “So there’s really nothing wrong with her?”

Alex sighs. “Not that I can see, no.” Then she snorts rather mutedly, as if she forgets she has company. “Then again, I’m not exactly the doctor my mother planned for me to be, so maybe I missed something. I’m sending it off to some contacts I know who might be able to give a more comprehensive second opinion. If mine even counts as a first opinion.”

Again, Lena merely casts a questioning look toward Alex, who blushes and seems to castigate herself even more for her display of self-flagellation.

“Sorry,” the agent grumbles. “This whole forbidden-from-the-field thing is hitting me harder than I expected. J’onn gave me permission to return to my lab this week, but it feels a bit like he’s just humoring me to keep me from doing something stupid.”

And well, that finally breaks a tiny simper across crimson lips. “I’m sure he knows by now there’s no amount of humoring you that can prevent you from doing something stupid.”

Alex rolls her eyes playfully. “Shouldn’t you be getting back to CatCo soon?”

Lena hums, checks her watch. “Yes. It is about that time where I should unexpectedly drop in on an editorial meeting for no other reason than to throw Jimmy Olsen for a loop.”

As she raises her hands to gesture the server, Alex unsuccessfully tries to stifle a laugh, and by the time the overly-coiffed waiter arrives at their table, the redhead has barely regained her composure enough to engage in the resulting exchange.

“Check, please,” Lena utters, radiating more procedural elegance than a fucking debutante ball.

“Oh, no need, ma’am. Your meal is on the house, today,” the server responds deferentially.

Lena, however, seems almost insulted. Her reply retains all the polite posturing of her previous tone, now injected with nothing but ice. “Tell Ronnie I appreciate the sentiment, but that I humbly request she extend those sentiments toward somebody who actually needs it. I will be paying my own bill and then some; let her use her own discretion to decide who deserves my money, if not you and the other fine employees of this establishment.”

The poor server has no clue what to do, so he stands there inoperably until Lena reaches into her wallet, fishes out a black AmEx, and hands it to him wordlessly, without even making eye contact. This action seems to spur him back into his job description, or at least successfully propels him away from the table.

“Does that happen a lot?” Alex inquires.

“The offers of free stuff, or the utter shock that follows when I refuse them?”

Alex just simpers and finishes the remnants of Lena’s food.

It’s only a few minutes longer until they are leaving the restaurant. Lena attempts to fuss over the other woman (who is still in a walking boot but stubbornly refusing to use her crutches), only to be consistently shrugged off.

That’s when they run into Morgan Edge.

Their usual verbal sparring is punctuated, for Lena, by the fact that she can feel Alex’s murderous glare from next to her, like she’s trying to magically morph into her sister and set the pompous asshole on fire with her eyes, and evidently, it isn’t lost on Edge, either, because a few snide remarks into their battle, when Lena attacks his misogyny and fear of powerful women, his eyes track over to the taller woman, and his smug expression turns almost lecherous.

“Oh, I assure you, Miss Luthor, I have no issue with powerful women. And I especially won’t complain when powerful women get in bed with other powerful women.”

At that, she feels the overprotective woman next to her tense, can almost hear her knuckles cracking as her fists clench, and so Lena sticks her arm out in front of Alex’s midsection as if to restrain her from stepping forward and ripping Edge’s throat out through his scrotum. Alex, to her credit, remains still following the action.

“I’m sure your browser history speaks for itself in that regard,” Lena retorts scornfully, and their confrontation continues, but perhaps in part thanks to Lena’s intervention, it remains strictly words, capping off with Lena’s oh-so-eloquent, “Burn in hell, Edge” and Edge’s “see you there,” uttered with an arrogant smile on his very punchable face as he climbs into his car.

As he drives off, Alex growls, “God, I wish I could rip out his throat through his scrotum.”

Lena chuckles. “It’s not exactly your jurisdiction, my darling.”

For a second, those two words bubble back up in her throat. _My_ darling. If Alex notices, however, she doesn’t let on, because she places a protective hand on Lena’s bicep, meeting her eyes imploringly.

“Let me walk you back to CatCo? I don’t trust him not to mow you down in the street.”

Lena chokes down her reaction to the viscerally protective tone of those words, instead nodding vaguely toward Alex’s leg. “You’re hurt.”

“It’s only a few blocks.”

“Exactly. I’ll be fine.”

“Please, Lena. Please.”

Narrowing her eyes at Alex’s pleading look, she negotiates, “If I let you walk me to CatCo, will you refrain from informing Kara about what just happened? Supergirl has more important things to do than act as my personal bodyguard.”

Alex splays her hand out over her sternum in a display of mock affront. “You want me to _lie_? To my _sister_?”

“It’s the price you must pay for caring if I live or die.”

The redhead frowns. “But you’ll walk on the inside of the sidewalk, let me walk on the street side?”

“Yes. And if we encounter any puddles, I insist that you place your coat over them so my shoes don’t get wet.”

“Oh, well, that goes without saying.”

\----

In the end, Morgan Edge does not mow Lena down in the street, but it’s hard to tell if that was a conscious choice, or one made because someone hacked into his vehicle and he could no longer control it from careening into the river, much less control it to commit any nefarious acts.

Somehow, though, the monster not only lives to tell the tale, but to storm into CatCo’s offices and publicly, baselessly accuse Lena of trying to kill him.

Or, well, okay. Maybe it’s not _entirely_ baseless, because Lena did try to kill him once. But that was an entirely different scenario, one which Lena is hardly proud of—if anything, she’s deeply, deeply ashamed, and it is one of her most heartfelt regrets that she succumbed to her demons and briefly, but truly, considered shooting a man in cold blood. She can make all the excuses she wants about provocations and emotional states and the kind of man Edge is and the tried-and-true schoolyard _but he started it_ , but the fact of the matter is, she walked into his office and pointed a gun at him.

Also, she hasn’t told anyone about it.

She remembers, distinctly, Kara saving her from that cargo plane. She had begged, _pleaded_ with the superhero to just let her fall, let her die, save the people, don’t save her, but her girlfriend wouldn’t have it. Kara had begged, _pleaded_ with Lena to climb, to help her save both Lena and the city, and as much as Lena wanted to punish herself, as much as she wanted to just be let go of, to let herself fall, to let herself die like she deserved to, it became an impossible task the second she looked into Kara’s eyes.

That night, she’s tried to tell Kara what she did. She swears she did—at least for a while. Not at first, of course, because immediately following the incident, Kara had dragged them both to the DEO med bay, refusing to let go of Lena’s hand to the point where Alex had to work around the Kryptonian impediment just to properly examine the CEO, forcing J’onn to hover in the doorway just so he could get the full debrief of what had happened.

After that, however, Kara had flown them to Lena’s penthouse, and by the time they landed on the balcony, it had been at least a couple hours since the incident, and yet Kara’s hands still hadn’t left Lena’s skin for more than a few seconds. Whether it was holding her hand, stroking her hair, squeezing her knee—it was like if Kara stopped touching her, Lena would die instantly.

So they just laid on the couch, Kara still in her Supergirl suit, her arms wrapped tightly around Lena’s waist as the shorter woman laid her full body weight on her alien girlfriend. They didn’t talk, didn’t express their feelings or fears verbally; rather, they conveyed everything necessary through sheer proximity. The heat of each other seemed to communicate their need for each other, and they relaxed into the embrace without question, knowing they both needed it.

Still, Lena tried—she really, really tried—to tell Kara. If not that night, then at least the next one.

Except the next one, Alex broke up with Maggie, and priorities shifted.

At the memory, Lena bristles. Because as daunting as it had been, before, to confess her sin to Kara, it is no longer so simple.

She also has to confess it to Alex.

And for some reason, that sits differently with her.

Kara is corporeal optimism and hope—she tirelessly believes in Lena, tirelessly trusts her. She will write every excuse to absolve Lena of her sins.

Alex, on the other hand, has the potential to really, actually be mad at Lena. Disappointed, even, and having already been on the receiving end of Alex’s disappointment, rather recently at that, Lena isn’t quite prepared to experience it, even though she knows she deserves it; after all, nobody could be more disappointed with her than she already is with herself.

\----

The opportunity arises for her to admit the truth to Kara. Several times, even, because Kara witnesses Morgan Edge’s hissy fit in the bullpen—well, “witnesses” is a funny word choice, because what she actually does is physically place her body between Morgan Edge and Lena, and the businesswoman finds herself thoroughly impressed that the alien doesn’t incinerate Edge on the spot. Despite being superpowered, or maybe because she is, the younger Danvers seems far less rash than the older Danvers, in this regard.

In any case, after that small debacle, it would have been quite easy for Lena to fess up to her moment of insane, potentially-life-altering weakness. However, she’s distracted, because the last time Morgan Edge was out to get her, a dozen children ended up sick, so as concerned as Kara and James appear to be about Lena’s own life, she’s far more concerned with the collateral damage involved in what will inevitably prove to be Edge’s intricate revenge plot.

She voices such concerns to Kara and James, incidentally, but they both go way too far to tell her that she needn’t worry, that she hasn’t done anything wrong, that everything will be taken care of and they will make sure she is safe, protected.

It doesn’t necessarily assuage her fears. If anything, it only adds to the maelstrom of too many emotions swirling in her mind and body.

Especially because for the rest of the day and the following one, Kara is giving her The Eyes.

Those beautiful, pained doe eyes. The eyes that appear like she’s almost in pain from trying so hard to obey the rules and resist her every instinct to talk to Lena, check on Lena, take care of Lena, to wrap Lena in a hug and protect her from the world. Every time Lena looks at the Kryptonian goddess and sees The Eyes, a black hole seems to open up in her chest, an endless chasm filled with nothing but hurt and shame and regret and selfish wishes for a different set of circumstances.

She chides herself at those thoughts, though, because Kara is _happy_. Existentially happy, at least, because she is living her truth, she is being herself, embracing herself, and Lena would never dream of taking that away from her, from anyone.

Still, she can’t help the distant part of her that wishes Kara could be happy and true to herself while also railing Lena until she couldn’t walk for a week and her expensive silk sheets were rendered utterly ruined.

But she chides herself for those thoughts, too. She gives herself some leeway, as they are clearly her basest, most instinctual thoughts, but nonetheless, they are exactly the thoughts she needs to rid from her mind before she can successfully interact with her best friend again.

And what better way to distract yourself from how much you want your best friend to fuck you senseless than to foam at that mouth because someone slipped poison in your coffee, right?

\----

When Lena comes to, she’s no longer writhing on the balcony outside her CatCo office. Instead, she’s somewhere that smells like disinfectant, with bright lights and loud beeping sounds that make her bleary eyes and buzzing head all the more painfully evident.

As the blurry whiteness slowly recedes toward the edges of her vision, she’s given some time to guess her whereabouts—not that it takes her very long. Her last memory before it all went black was Jimmy Olsen bellowing Kara’s name, followed by a flash of blonde hair and the press of heat and cardigan-covered muscles against her skin. Which can only mean one thing—she’s in the DEO med bay.

She _hates_ being in the DEO med bay.

Although, given the circumstances, it’s better than a hospital, and since she feels like she was hit by a bus that then doubled back and hit her again for good measure, she assumes she needs medical attention.

Slowly, she tries to sit up. Her brain protests by knocking itself repeatedly into her skull, but she presses on, closing her eyes to make the bright lights go away and successfully reducing her pain to a duller roar.

“Whoa, easy. Lay back down.”

Ah, yes. She knew some fixture of the DEO med bay was missing.

“Agent Danvers,” she groans. “Why do I feel like I was hit by a truck?”

“You were poisoned,” Alex replies bluntly but calmly, sounding all too much like a doctor. Her voice has gotten closer, so Lena more or less expects it when she feels two hands on her shoulder, gingerly encouraging her to lay back down.

She obeys, smacking her lips a couple times, feeling the dryness in her mouth, remembering the acrid taste of her coffee, far more bitter and burnt than normal.

“Cyanide?”

“Bingo.”

“It should be against the Geneva Conventions to poison someone’s coffee. It’s cruel and unusual to take such a precious lifeline and use it as a weapon.”

“We’re talking about a guy who was willing to poison the whole city’s water supply just to spite you. I doubt he has any qualms over ruining one cup of coffee.”

Lena’s jaw steels, and she opens her eyes so she can glare into Alex’s. “So it was Edge?”

The agent’s eyebrows raise, and she crosses her arms defiantly over her chest. “You neglected to tell me about his little scene at CatCo.”

“Like I said. He’s not your jurisdiction.”

With a blazing, piqued look in her eyes, Alex retorts, “But you are.”

 _Oh_.

Lena’s breath hitches a bit at that, and she doesn’t exactly know why, but she’s quick to blame it on the albatross of guilt and shame that she’s been carrying around.

She needs to confess. Sooner, rather than later.

“Kara?” she says, clearing her throat around a rapidly-forming lump. “Are you out there?”

Seconds later, Kara Danvers comes trudging sheepishly around the corner and into the med bay, rubbing her forearm with the opposite hand, her cheeks flushed and her eyes trained down to the floor. The stance is so endearing and familiar that it startles Lena a second, until she registers a chilling sight: pressed slacks, a soft cardigan over a perfectly-draped oxford. Her hair is still in a bun, her glasses still perched on her nose.

“You flew me here as Kara Danvers?”

She blushes further, fiddling with her lead frames. “I didn’t think. I just reacted.”

“It’s lucky she did,” Alex adds, her tone reproachful, likely more due to fear than actual displeasure with anyone in the room. “If she’d waited even the few extra seconds it took to switch into her suit, you could have died. Or at least, suffered more permanent damage.”

“So no neurological effects, Dr. Danvers?” Lena grimaces, trying to keep the atmosphere light despite the situation and her own trepidation.

“Not that I can tell. But I can flash a pen light over your pupils a few times, if it’ll make you feel better.”

“That won’t be necessary,” she sighs, struggling once again to sit up on her own, only to now find two distinct hands, attached to two distinct people, urging her to lay back down. “I’m fine. I’m _fine,_ please, stop taking care of me. I don’t deserve it.”

She shouldn’t have said it. She shouldn’t have said it, because she should have known what it would result in, what it _does_ result in: The Double Danvers Crinkle. Within milliseconds, she is met with the sight of both sisters, older and younger, scrutinizing her with overwhelming love and concern and anxiety, their eyebrows identically furrowed, their connection so evident that it reverberates in Lena’s bones.

“I’m sick of this,” Lena breathes, tears springing into her eyes against her will. “This cycle of violence, it…I’ve seen it ruin Lex and Lillian and I don’t want to be a part of it. He’s going to keep trying, and he doesn’t care how many people have to die or suffer—he’s going to do whatever it takes to kill me, no matter the consequences.”

“We’re not gonna let that happen,” Kara chokes, moving her hand toward Lena before thinking better of it and retracting it, tucking her arms around her own waist instead. “He’s not gonna get to you, and you aren’t gonna turn into Lex or Lillian, okay? We won’t let it happen.”

“It’s already happening!” she snaps back. Closing her eyes lest the matching looks in the Danvers’ eyes succeed in breaking her, she releases an unfettered growl as she rubs at her temples with the pads of her fingers. “I’m already…” She sucks in a deep breath. “I did a bad thing.”

And they both just look at her like that couldn’t even be possible, which only manages to make things worse for Lena.

“What are you talking about?” Kara asks, uncrossing then re-crossing her arms more assertively over her chest.

“Disintegrating bullet!”

The cry echoes through the hall into the med bay, and it catches the attention of all three women. Seconds later, Winn Schott comes barreling into the room, more than slightly out of breath, holding a tablet and full of pride.

“Oh man, wait till you see this,” he grins. “The hitman, who poisoned Lena’s coffee—glad to see you’re okay, by the way—I had NCPD rush the autopsy on him and even though James, multiple witnesses, and most of the forensics verify that he was shot by a rooftop sniper, there’s no bullet, and no exit wound. Instead, the materials from the bullet somehow dissolved into his tissues. I mean—honestly, it’s pretty cool. Alien, human, or otherwise, I have _never_ seen or heard of tech like this, so I—”

“I have.”

Lena cuts off Winn’s effusive report with those curt, almost cold-blooded words. Her expression is no less frightening, her jaw set in stone, her eyes blazing and icy at the same time, her nostrils flared and almost twitching in anger.

“Lena…?”

“Lillian,” the Luthor snarls. “Before L-Corp was L-Corp, she and Lex…let’s just say I guess she’s finished what they started.”

“Wait,” Kara scoffs, closing her eyes as if that would help her piece things together. “So Lillian shot Morgan Edge’s hired hitman?”

“She knows Supergirl and the DEO and Guardian are in my corner. She knows that if that hitman were caught alive, he would sing like a bird until Morgan Edge were behind bars forever, and that’s not what she wants.”

“So what does she want?”

“She wants him dead.”

“How do you know that?” Alex asks bluntly.

With darkened eyes, Lena turns on the agent, hissing, “Because I know that psychopath. I know her, because I’m turning into her.”

The three others squint at her, confused and concerned. Winn, to his credit, clears his throat and, ostensibly trying to excuse himself from the tense room, says, “Right, well. I’m gonna go look into some records and see what I can find out about Luthor Corp’s attempts to research or manufacture—”

“Don’t bother,” Lena scoffs. “If I know my mother, this is only one in a series of clues that I alone will be able to follow in order to find her location and intent.”

“Right,” Winn snorts, one hand tightening around the tablet as the other moves to gesticulate angrily. “My dad was the same way. Nothing an evil genius loves more than a demented scavenger hunt.”

“Dismissed, Agent Schott,” Alex barks, and the man flinches visibly before nodding sharply and taking his leave. As soon as he’s out of earshot, Alex rounds on the Luthor, not bothering to soften her tone in the slightest. “You’re hiding something from us. If we’re gonna help you take down Edge and Lillian, we need to be fully in the loop, and you need to trust us enough to not keep secrets. Can we all agree to that?”

Lena’s jaw drops a bit as her eyebrows raise, but Kara reaches out, running the pad of her thumb over Lena’s collarbone, her own face set in determination.

“Whatever it is, Lena, we’re still standing here. We’ll still love you, we’ll still help you.”

Before she can have a chance to think those words over, Lena blurts out, “I did try to kill Edge.”

And there it is again: The Double Danvers Crinkle.

“What are you talking about?” Kara chokes.

“You hacked his car?” Alex hisses.

“No, of course not,” Lena sighs. “That was probably Lillian, I didn’t—after the kids were poisoned. After he… _poisoned children_ just to frame me, after he proved himself such an irredeemable monster that he’d—I walked into his office with a loaded gun. I wanted to—I was _going to_ shoot him, but one of his cronies pistol-whipped me before I had a chance to go through with it, and I came to on a cargo plane full of—well, you know the rest of the story.”

She splits her attention between the two sisters as they individually react to this information. First, she watches as Kara crosses her arms over her chest, blinking repeatedly as she shakes her head back and forth, her lips pursing together for a few seconds before she opens her mouth, then closes it, then purses her lips again as she pushes up her glasses, then crosses her arms again. Rinse, repeat.

Alex, on the other hand, appears far less fidgety. In fact, she’s almost the opposite: she stares steadfastly at Lena, her eyes narrowed. She studies Lena like she’s a complicated math problem needing to be solved, a code she can’t quite crack but is determined to. Her arms are also crossed, but less out of distress and more out of the abundantly clear fact that when she’s dressed in her all-black tactical gear, that’s just her default posture.

“But you didn’t,” Kara says, finally. “You didn’t shoot him.”

“Obviously not,” Lena breathes. “He lived to try to assassinate me another day. But…I would have. I was stopped before I had a chance to, but I would have.”

“Okay,” the superhero breathes, sitting on the bed beside Lena’s legs, not even reacting when Lena then gingerly sits up to allow her more room. “Okay. Wow.”

“You wouldn’t have gone through with it,” Alex declares.

“I wanted to.”

“But you wouldn’t have,” she reasserts. “I truly believe that.”

And Kara seems to nod along with that, adding, “You’re not a killer, Lena. You would never actually go through with something like that, even if for a while, you thought you could.”

Lena furrows her eyebrows, staring, scrutinizing the sisters. Trying to find the lie. Trying to see through their masks, trying to find the truth, detect that tiniest hint that they are lying, placating her, trying to protect her or make her feel better because…of _something_ , anything. She can’t even fathom why they would feel the need to placate her, why they would lie to her, why they would bother. Why would they bother with her?

And yet…she can’t find anything in their faces. Nothing other than determination, belief, support. _Love_.

She looks in their eyes and she sees love.

Love for _her_. For her, for _Lena Luthor._

She sucks in a breath, tears pricking her eyes as she opens her mouth to speak, but she’s gruffly cut off by Alex Danvers.

“Now that we’ve settled that, how do we go about stopping the _actual_ malicious killers?”

Lena falters again, waging a war within herself, trying to pick a battle to fight, weighing her pros versus her cons, until she quickly realizes a simple fact—the battle in which she finally convinces the Danvers sisters that they are too good for her, that she isn’t worth their time or their love or their support or their anything, that’s a battle she can fight anytime. Today, tomorrow, every day for the next year. That’s a long game. On the other hand, the fight where she stops both Lillian and Morgan Edge in one fell swoop? The universe doesn’t just drop golden opportunities like that into your lap every day, and when it does, you don’t just squander them.

So, with a deep breath, she stares deep into Alex’s eyes.

“I have a plan. But you’re not gonna like it.”

\----

Alex does not like the plan; she would not like _any_ plan that involved even pretending to work with Lillian Luthor, would not like _any_ plan that involved Lena standing in a room with Lillian unattended, would not like _any_ plan that involved Lillian Luthor, period, unless the plan started with Alex getting to punch Lillian in the face and ended with her getting to lock Lillian in a cell and throw away the key.

Nonetheless, both Alex and Kara agree to Lena’s plan, in the name of justice and putting a stop to two terrorists with one fell swoop.

They also agree because it’s Lena. Because it’s Lena, so they know it will work.

And it does.

So, yeah, there is the slight hiccup where Lillian planned ahead and brought the Lexo-suit, but other than that, it all goes well.

Which is how Lena finds herself trudging into her apartment, exhaustion slowly setting in as her adrenaline starts to wane. Still dressed from the gala she crashed, she immediately steps out of her impossibly uncomfortable heels—of course Morgan Edge had been cruel enough to make her _run_ in those monstrosities—and heads immediately to the kitchen to pour herself a well-deserved drink.

She decides to celebrate, even. Instead of reaching for the closest bottle of scotch or red wine, she treats herself, pulling out a cocktail shaker along with a bottle of gin, a fresh bottle of vermouth, orange bitters. She even goes so far as to peel off a lemon twist—after all, it’s not every day you get to send both your mortal enemy _and_ your terrorist mother to prison. When you do, you deserve a proper martini using the recipe taught to you by Rachel Maddow herself.

As she’s straining her drink into a chilled glass (she’s _celebrating_ ), she hears a knock on the door. She frowns at her yet-to-be-tasted drink and pads over to the door, taking the opportunity to rid herself of a few more painful bobby pins as she does so.

She opens the door to find Alex Danvers standing on the other side.

“Hey,” the agent smiles brightly. “I wanted—”

Her sentence ends abruptly, her smile disappearing as her mouth hangs open a bit and her eyes widen comically. Lena’s face screws up in confusion, tilting her head until she realizes that in addition to growing to the size of saucers, Alex’s eyes have also tracked downward.

To Lena’s cleavage.

Because she’s still dressed from the gala she crashed, which means there is a _lot_ of cleavage. Like, _a lot_. And apparently, Alex is not immune to it.

Now, Lena’s not stupid. She knows how powerful and distracting cleavage can be, especially her own cleavage, and especially her own cleavage in this particular dress.

Still, she didn’t anticipate her breasts would break Alex Danvers.

 _Useless lesbian_ , she smirks to herself as she watches a blush creep over the older woman’s face. Amused, she clears her throat, watching as it springs Alex back to life. She jumps nearly a foot in the air, her eyes darting back up to Lena’s face, her blushing deepening beyond belief.

“Sorry,” Alex rasps, blinking repeatedly. “Did you—what did you say?”

Taking pity on the poor, useless lesbian, Lena merely smiles and replies, “I invited you in for a drink.”

“Right,” the redhead nods. “Sorry. Yes, I—sorry.”

“It’s been a long day. Come in, I’ll make you a martini.”

Alex’s eyebrows raise. “Martinis? I knew the mission went well, but not getting-up-the-energy-to-make-martinis well.”

Lena’s smirk expands as she jerks her head to gesture Alex into the apartment. Shutting the door behind her, she saunters over to the kitchen, knowing the redheaded agent is following in her wake without needing to look back and verify.

“Well,” she drawls. “I had quite the series of successes today. I put my mother back behind bars, I put Morgan Edge behind bars, I managed to work with Kara without falling to pieces, and of course, there is the small matter of me narrowly surviving cyanide poisoning, for which I do believe I have you to thank, and if you are amenable, I wish to thank you for that by making you a martini.”

“Are you implying your life is only worth one martini?” Alex chuckles awkwardly, her voice sounding forced and at least two octaves higher than usual. Curious, Lena looks over to find that dark, hazel eyes are steadfastly, yet oddly, fixed on the ceiling above Lena’s head.

“Well, then,” she replies, allowing a sultry quality into her tone just to see how far she could push the other woman before her head exploded all over Lena’s expensive hardwood floors. “Consider this the first in a long line of favors I owe you.”

“Not necessary,” Alex refutes, her eyes flitting to Lena’s face before drifting to pale cleavage and snapping immediately down to the floor. “I, um. You don’t owe me anything. I saved you because you’re important to me, and I care about—and, you know.” She clears her throat, rubbing her back of her neck. “Doctor. Do no harm. Saving people is my job, so. No need to thank me or owe me anything. Just happy you’re okay.”

“Of course,” Lena simpers.

They stand in pregnant silence as the businesswoman measures and pours the requisite ingredients into the cocktail shaker. Alex’s eyes firmly remain on Lena’s hands and their activities all the while, so when she caps the metal container and begins to actually shake the martini, her eyes follow it.

But each strong, agitating shake Lena gives the container causes her breasts to bounce along with the action, and the cut of her dress does nothing but accentuate the movements, and Lena’s only halfway through mixing the martini before she realizes that her guest is all but salivating at the sight of her vigorously jiggling chest.

Lena finds herself wondering, for probably the millionth time since meeting Alex Danvers, how the older woman could have ever _possibly_ thought she was straight.

“Agent Danvers,” Lena enunciates, still holding the shaker aloft.

“Yes?” Alex mutters, her eyes remaining on pale cleavage.

“You’re staring.”

Blushing again, Alex actually goes so far as to angle her body away from Lena, this time. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. I’m a businesswoman, after all; I know my assets and how to best utilize them. I assure you, there’s nothing to be sorry about. You’ve only reinforced what I already know.”

“Sorry,” Alex blurts again.

Rolling her eyes and chuckling, she merely pours the flustered woman her martini. “Stop apologizing and celebrate with me. Please.”

“…Sorry.”

“You’re only human,” Lena insists, pushing the drink toward Alex until her long fingers wrap around the stem. “Now, please. Toast with me, drink with me, and let us acknowledge our joint success.”

Alex gulps, training her eyes on Lena’s face with visible effort. “Yes. Of course. Right. So, then…to, um. To killing two birds with one stone.”

She extends her glass toward Lena, who extends her own to meet halfway. After the requisite _clink_ , they sip their drinks like their lives depend on it—although, presumably, for different reasons.

“Dear God, this is a good martini.”

“When you have a rich, alcoholic father, you end up learning a thing or two about drinking. At the very least through osmosis.”

Alex chortles, sliding into a barstool on the other side of the island from Lena. “So…how are you feeling about what went down today?”

Lena bristles. “In what respect?”

“In the respect that your mother got arrested on federal charges and will probably never again see the light of day.”

The Luthor releases a single bark of cold-hearted laughter. “You know as well as I do that nothing will stop my mother other than death. She could spend the rest of her life in solitary confinement and still somehow manage to destroy more than we could ever keep up with.”

Taking a deep, careful breath, Alex looks deep into green eyes. “I hope that isn’t true.”

“Don’t pretend you don’t hate my mother just as much, if not more than I do.”

“Oh, trust me,” the agent snorts, propping her injured leg up on another barstool. “I hate her infinitely more than you do. One of my greatest regrets in life is not shooting her at any of the multiple opportunities I had to shoot her—and I had plenty. But that…that’s a personal vendetta. It isn’t justice. As blurry as the ethical lines can be in my line of work, I at least know the difference between when I want to kill somebody because I want to versus when I need to. I _want_ to kill Lillian, but it isn’t needed. It isn’t the right thing to do, it isn’t… _okay_. Otherwise, I’d have done it a while ago.”

“That…” Lena trails off, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth before releasing it with a faint _pop_. “That’s strangely comforting.”

“I am _always_ going to have your back, Lena,” Alex breathes, reaching her hand across the island toward where Lena’s is gripping the countertop. “I know you—I saw the look on your face earlier today, in the med bay. It was the same look I have on my face, I’m sure, every time I tell Kara that I had to take a life. It’s the look I had on my face when I told Kara that I killed her aunt in order to save J’onn. That…that _fear_ , that _guilt_ , that _shame_. And you didn’t even do anything. Sure, you thought about it, but…look, all I’m saying is, I know you. I know you, and I know you don’t want to hurt people. I know your ultimate goal is the greater good. I know you know that, sometimes…” Alex takes a deep breath. “Sometimes, working toward the greater good means betraying yourself. Betraying your own moral code, your own limits of what you said you would let yourself do in order to achieve the greater good.”

She retracts her hand, using it instead to swipe tears away from the edges of her eyes.

“Kara doesn’t get it. She can’t get it. She’s too… _pure_. She’s too—I’ve protected her from it. I’ve spent too much time hurting people, _killing_ people so she didn’t have to know what it feels like. Kara doesn’t get it, but I do. And I know you do, too. I’m a scientist who became a soldier because I found my purpose. I found my greater good, and like anything worth having, it came at a cost. I know you get that, so I just wanted to let you know that I get it too. I understand you, and I am _with you_. No matter what. Not just because I believe in you, but because I understand you.”

As Lena takes her time to stare at Alex, and now it’s her turn to be a little slack-jawed (although she hopes it’s not quite as obvious how thrown off she is by Alex’s emotional outpouring as it was how thrown of Alex was by Lena’s cleavage, because Lena likes to believe she has more self-control than that).

“Thank you, Alex.”

And she hopes the heartfelt warble in her voice doesn’t reach the agent’s ears.

The sly smirk on Alex’s face lightens the mood, however, especially when it’s followed by, “Hey, you’ve thanked me enough with this martini.”

For not the first time, and probably not the last, Lena marvels at how easy it is to sit around and talk to Alex Danvers, even after the longest day of her life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's not my favorite chapter, but oh well. And if you don't remember the dress that Lena wears to the gala in 3x12, well. Do yourself that favor.


	9. i'm no monster, i'm just like you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, I want to thank everyone from the very, very bottom of my heart for reading and staying with this exceptionally slow-burn of a story (it'll happen, I promise). 
> 
> Also, thank you thank you thank you for all the comments, and sorry that I'm sporadic about replying to them. I'd like to say it's not because I only gather the courage to reply when I'm drunk and feeling sentimental, but I don't wanna lie, so I won't say that <3

Lena wakes up before her alarm, her eyelids heavy and bleary in that peaceful, warm way that follows a good night’s sleep. The first rays of dawn are just barely setting in, peeking ever-so-slightly through the crack of her curtains to cast a beautiful, blue-grey haze over her bedroom. She inhales deeply, sinking further into the mattress and pulling the blankets tighter around herself as she exhales with a contented moan.

There’s a shifting on the other side of the bed, filling her heart with a sense of satisfaction and safety. She rolls toward the movement, reaching out her arm to wrap it around the waist of her bedmate, who responds in kind, languidly pulling their bodies flush against each other. Lena flings her top leg over the woman’s legs, trapping her, and burrows her face in her chest, causing her to chuckle drowsily and glide her hand down from Lena’s waist to the ample curve of her ass.

“Mm,” Lena hums. “Can we stay here all day?”

“I wish, baby.”

“But you’re so comfy and warm. How are you always so warm?”

“S’my superpower.”

Lena smiles, burying herself further in the embrace. Distantly, an alarm starts to chirp, and she groans audibly. “Wanna stay.”

“Me too, babe. But we have a world to save.”

She punctuates her statement by squeezing Lena’s ass, drawing out a groggy moan.

“Don’t do that, Alex, or we’ll never get out of this bed.”

The beeping gets louder, more urgent, as the redhead presses their naked bodies closer.

“I don’t want this to end either, Lena, but it’s time to get up.”

\----

Lena jerks awake, panicking for a quick moment when she feels her body restricted in a blanket vise while a loud, quick, urgent beeping fills the space around her.

“What the fuck?” she mutters to herself, her chest heaving as she tries to register what just happened.

She just had a dream about Alex Danvers. And it wasn’t even a sex dream, something she could attribute to hormones or her recent post-breakup drought; it was an _intimacy_ dream. She dreamt of having a quiet, lazy, intimate morning with her ex-girlfriend’s sister.

Best friend. Kara is her best friend. And Alex is, too. Alex is also Lena’s best friend.

Which is weird. She’s never had more than one best friend at a time. Honestly, she’s never even really had a _best_ friend, just _good_ friends, but that’s neither here nor there.

Since her alarm is still blaring, she decides to shake those thoughts out of her brain, write her dream off as a side effect of the very stressful few weeks she’s had, and simply begin her day.

She just needs coffee. A lot of coffee.

Today is going to be good, because she’s going back to L-Corp, returning to her element. Giving Sam some time to spend with Ruby. She gets to check in on her research and her pet projects and stop feeling like she’s in above her head trying to run a media company—not to mention she doesn’t have to constantly question whether she’s about to see Kara at every turn.

Yawning greatly, she rubs the remaining sleep from her eyes, rises from bed, and pads out of her bedroom toward the kitchen.

Alex is in her kitchen.

 _Alex is_ —

A long night and a bit too much alcohol had led Lena to, once again, invite the older Danvers to crash in her guest room rather than risk the journey home.

So, obviously, because Alex Danvers is _Alex Danvers_ , that translates into her being awake at dawn, staring impatiently at a percolating coffeemaker, dressed in the sleep shorts Lena had lent her the night before and the tight-fitting black thermal she’d shown up in.

Lena must have been staring, because Alex winces a little, somewhere between amused and embarrassed, and comments, “You forgot I stayed over here, didn’t you?”

“I—” Lena clears her throat, trying to think of anything to cover for her own awkwardness. “I’m not much of a morning person.”

“Oh yeah? How did that work out when you were dating Kara Danvers, personified sunshine?”

“She brought me black coffee in bed and knew not to try to talk to me before I was at least halfway through the cup.”

“Well, in that case,” she chuckles, pulling a mug from the cabinet and wasting no time filling it with piping hot coffee. “Here you go.”

She slides the mug over with a wordless smile before turning back to the glorious coffee and pouring a cup for herself. They sit in comfortable quiet as they sip their coffees, both scrolling through their phones, and there’s a sort of terrifyingly exquisite domesticity to the whole experience that, when combined with Lena’s dream, sends her reeling.

_It was only a dream. You’re just friends. Really good friends. Best friends. Don’t make it weird because of a stupid dream that probably wasn’t even about her. Dreams don’t have to mean anything._

Feeling too familiar and sated in something so simple as drinking coffee in the grey stillness of morning, Lena only has to make it a third the way through her coffee before she speaks.

“This coffee is incredible,” she murmurs. “You’re a saint.”

“I thought I was a martyr,” Alex quips.

“Well, they’re not exactly mutually exclusive.”

It all feels so… _quaint._

Lena tries not to think too hard about it, though. She’s just not used to having friends, is all.

\----

Ultimately, she doesn’t have to expend too much effort trying not to think about it. Her work consumes her from the moment she enters her office at L-Corp.

Well, maybe not _the_ moment, because first she spends quite a bit of time convincing Sam to take the day off and be with her daughter, assuring her repeatedly that it is not a commentary on the quality of Sam’s work, rather a mangled attempt at humanity by a workaholic CEO who oftentimes isn’t quite as good at delegating as she thinks she is.

Then, of course, when she’s finally achieved her goal of giving Sam the mental health day she deserves, there’s this exchange:

“So. What’s going on with you and Alex?”

Lena narrowly avoids reacting visibly to that comment; luckily, being in an office setting makes it much easier to school her features, keep her aplomb. “What do you mean?”

“Come on, Lena. I know my mind has been playing tricks on me lately, but there’s no way I imagined the vibe between you two. Kara and I were practically choking on it.”

Quirking an eyebrow, Lena all but glares at her CFO. “I assure you, there’s nothing going on between me and Alex. We’ve gotten closer recently, undeniably, but it’s purely platonic.”

“Right,” Sam drawls, unconvinced. “Just like it was with Kara?”

Green eyes now openly shoot daggers toward the tall, lanky woman, who clicks her tongue once and holds her hands up in defeat before gathering up her coat and bag.

“For what it’s worth, Kara noticed it too, and I don’t think she was bothered by it. If anything, she seemed…happy for you. Both of you.”

“There’s nothing to be happy _about_ , Sam.”

“Sure.”

Sam squints at her, before one corner of her mouth tweaks up into a smirk. She then takes her leave, and Lena promptly decides to pretend that conversation never occurred.

Because self-preservation.

For the same reasons, she dives headlong into work, and within minutes, her brain is free of all thoughts pertaining to either Danvers sister, with Sam Arias only making appearances when it becomes abundantly clear how brilliant an addition she has proved to be to L-Corp and its day-to-day operations, despite the constant juggling act she performs.

In her hyper-focused state, it feels like time stands still as she pours over documents and plans and proposals, but when she’s jarred back into awareness by the sound of her office phone ringing, she notices several hours have passed, and it’s well into lunchtime.

She frowns at the phone a moment, not recognizing the number. The list of people who have access to call this phone directly, without passing through Jess first, is an exceptionally short one, and while she’s confused, she’s also curious, so she picks up the phone without hesitation.

“Lena Luthor,” she greets in her honed businesswoman voice, the one that exudes power and confidence even when she doesn’t feel it.

“Oh. Is…is my mom there?”

Ruby Arias’s voice sounds so small and shaky and scared that it eviscerates Lena in an instant.

“What? No, sweetie, I gave her—where are you?”

“I—” Ruby sucks in a breath that audibly cuts off halfway down her throat. “She took me ice skating, and then she—I thought she had to go back to work, maybe, I don’t—I don’t know where she is.”

The girl hasn’t even finished speaking before Lena’s standing, gathering her belongings as best she can while tied to a landline phone.

“Okay, Ruby, I want you to stay right where you are. I’m coming to get you. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes, okay, sweetie?”

That’s how Lena finds herself sitting at an ice-skating rink with Ruby, drinking hot chocolate and trying to assuage the astute young girl’s fears about what’s wrong with her mother.

Because the twelve-year-old is perfectly and painfully her mother’s daughter, smart and sensitive and intuitive beyond her years, and they all should have known much sooner that they couldn’t hide reality from her, that the more they tried to hide reality from her, the more suspicious Ruby would get.

And that’s _also_ how Lena manages to put terrifying pieces together.

That night, after she’s dropped Ruby off with her babysitter and gone back to L-Corp, Lena hears about the attack at the subway station. She turns on the news to see Reign and the new Worldkiller and the destruction they cause.

Then, less than an hour after Reign flies off from the scene, Sam comes rushing into the office, responding in person to the many texts Lena had sent her, half informing her of Ruby’s wellbeing and location, half inquiring about Sam’s own wellbeing and location.

And Sam, in her frenzy of emotion, doesn’t take to fondly to learning about the conversation Lena had with Ruby, and when the anger sets in, so do some uncharacteristic reactions.

First, Sam shouts, _“Silence!”_ in a deep, commanding, almost echoing voice unlike any Lena had ever heard except from—

 _Oh God_.

It has to be a coincidence, right? It’s just a—

Then, Sam’s eyes go from warm hazel to glowing red.

And Lena knows.

Especially because when her eyes flash back to hazel, Sam has no memory of what she just did, what she just said.

Sam is Reign, somehow.

And Lena needs to fix it.

\----

Once Sam is fully and surely sedated in L-Corp’s basement lab, she puts up the barriers around the bed, then heads to her office, using the elevator ride to brace herself for what she must do next.

Alex Danvers answers on the third ring.

“Hey, Lena,” she answers, her voice laced with thinly-veiled concern. “What’s up?”

“Is Kara with you?”

“Yes.”

The reply comes both from Alex and, in the background, Kara, confirming Lena’s hunch that the superhero is listening in.

“I need you both to promise me something.”

Alex is quiet, but she hears Kara say, tentatively, “Promise you what?”

“You’ll keep your minds open. Our friend is in trouble, and we all promised to help her. So if I ask you to come to L-Corp, if I tell you my theories, then you need to promise me you’ll come as friends first. Please. _Please_.”

“Lena,” the ever-vigilant agent breathes into the phone. “You’re freaking me out, here. Are you in danger?”

“No.”

“Is Sam?”

Lena bites her lip. “Can you both just come here? Please? I need—”

She cuts herself off, because in her desperation to save her friend, she was about to admit to something she hates admitting. So she sucks in a breath and changes courses.

“I could do this myself, but it will go a lot smoother, a lot quicker, a lot less painfully, if I have the both of you on my side. Please, please, just…come here. Please.”

There’s a pause, and Lena knows the sisters are having a full, wordless conversation in that admirable way only they can. The next thing she hears is a gust of air and a few seconds of loud wind followed by a hard landing on sturdy concrete, which she hears both over the phone and from the other side of her balcony doors.

Supergirl walks into the office without hesitation, her eyes scanning for threats, while Alex seems to read the room a little better, taking her time to enter, adjusting her clothes and hair to fix the damage caused by her sudden flight. She’s still dressed in her DEO tac gear, all tight and black and thigh holster and polo unzipped just enough to remind Lena that she had a dream about snuggling that naked body just this morning.

_Focus, Luthor._

“What’s going on?” Kara asks urgently, her fists on her hips, her legs spread. Though her stance and suit say Supergirl, her wavering voice and worried eyes belie the projected confidence, reminding Lena all the more of the dichotomous enigma she fell in love with. “Where’s Sam?”

Lena sighs, feeling all too suddenly how heavy the weight of the world is on her shoulders, first slides her phone onto her desk, then reaches up to pull out her ponytail. As she combs her fingers through her hair, she gestures wearily to the couch. “You two should sit.”

“Lena—”

“Kara, please,” the businesswoman implores, heading over to pour them all glasses of water. As much as her soul pulls her toward the decanter of scotch, she knows she has a long night ahead of her. “This is…this is a lot.”

The superhero frowns, but relents, stalking over to the stark white couch and taking a seat—though her pout remains in full force. Alex squints, almost _glowers_ , at Lena, but nevertheless follows her sister’s lead and perches on the edge of the couch.

“You made us promise to keep an open mind,” Alex reminds her, as if she’s forgotten in the last three minutes. “So at least return the favor and cut to the chase.”

Lena places two glasses of water on the coffee table in front of her two best friends. There’s a strange moment, then, where she feels the urge to sit down across from them, but realizes there’s no chair unless she walks across the room to her desk and pulls one over, but that feels too involved, too dramatic, and so instead she just stands there, awkwardly, wringing her hands in front of her waist in that nervous habit her mother always told her to quit but she never could, her eyes darting between Supergirl and Agent fucking Danvers, feeling strangely intimidated by the whole situation.

So, she decides to do as Alex requested and just cut to the chase, if for no other reason than she doesn’t know what else to do.

“I think Sam is Reign.”

You wouldn’t have to be Kryptonian to hear a pin drop in the room, after that.

It takes…two minutes? Five? Ten? Who knows. It takes a period of time that feels like the difference between life and death for someone to speak, and when someone does speak, it’s Kara, and it’s _Kara_ , not Supergirl, so the input she offers is simply:

“ _How_?”

The word is drawn out considerably, squeaked out in a pitch several octaves above Kara’s normal register, and especially several octaves above Supergirl’s normal register. Still, Lena resists the urge to giggle, instead barreling through her explanation, stating her hypothesis and backing it up with her observations.

She doesn’t get far before the first interruption; it comes from Alex, following the story involving Sam disappearing suddenly from the skating rink without a word or a trace.

“Where’s Ruby?”

“Safe,” Lena swears. “I left her with the babysitter, and I’m making arrangements to transfer them to a safe house as soon as tomorrow.” She holds up her hand preemptively, shutting down Alex as she opens her mouth to protest. “Only Lex and I know the location, so it is inherently more secure than whatever DEO facility you are about to offer. Also, it is infinitely cozier, I’m sure, barring the extremely creepy portrait of Mother that silently judges you in the dining room.”

The older Danvers studies her, head tilted. The younger Danvers, on the other hand, crosses her arms over the glyph on her chest and asks, suspiciously, “Then where is Sam?”

Lena goes back to wringing her fingers, wincing at the matching, knowing looks on her friends’ faces. “She…is in a medically-induced coma in the basement lab.”

“ _Lena_.”

The businesswoman flinches a bit at the superhero’s outraged tone, but as she begins to formulate her defense, a strong, sisterly hand falls to Kara’s knee.

“When we found out Julia was a Worldkiller, we locked her up in a secret government facility. At least Lena was humane enough to sedate Sam.”

“You found a second Worldkiller?” Lena gapes, shifting her weight to one foot and wishing she had awkwardly dragged over the chair from the desk.

Kara stammers a bit, and she stands without warning before Alex pulls her back down, and those strong, slender, Kryptonian hands rake through impossibly perfect curls as she processes the slew of incoming and outgoing information.

“We did. And so far, what we learned from her only reinforces your theories,” the agent sighs. “She may be a Worldkiller, but there’s a human inside her. Or maybe the opposite. We don’t know; we just know that the Worldkiller knows about Julia, but Julia doesn’t know about the Worldkiller.”

“But she can stop her,” Kara asserts. “Julia doesn’t know she’s Purity; she can’t control it. But you can reach her even when she’s Purity. You can bring her back.”

“Okay,” Lena breathes, pinching the bridge of her nose, her eyes firmly shut.

“You should sit,” Alex mutters, standing abruptly, wasting no time to close the space between herself and the CEO, shepherding her to occupy the seat she had just vacated. She stares warily at Lena, waiting for her to vocalize the thoughts that are so clearly cycling through her big, beautiful brain. When it becomes clear she doesn’t intend to do so organically, however, Alex intervenes, asking, simply, “What’s going on? What are you thinking?”

“We took her blood,” Lena muses, sounding almost casual. “We can’t take Kara’s blood.”

Alex furrows her brows. “So the parts of her that are Kryptonian…the parts of her that are Reign. Those are dormant. They lay dormant until they’re…”

“Activated,” Lena supplies. “Necessary.”

“For what, survival? So why now?”

“Who knows? Who cares? It’s irrelevant unless it helps us stop them.”

“For the record,” Kara interjects. “This weird little hive mind you two have? It kinda freaks me out sometimes.”

“Noted,” Alex grunts. “Okay, so, Sam is sedated in the basement. Julia is AWOL. There’s still a third Worldkiller out there somewhere, one who’s likely going to activate soon.”

The agent paces the room as she speaks, then begins muttering to herself. Lena opens her mouth to contribute, until Kara puts a hand on her wrist, stopping her with a simple shake of her head.

Sure enough, seconds later, Alex stops pacing and turns to the younger women on the couch.

“We need to find a way to keep Reign contained so that we can study Sam while she’s awake. And, ideally, so that we can study her while she’s Reign.”

“Right,” Lena drawls out, casting a cagey look over at Supergirl. “About that…”

The blonde tilts her head in confusion, then her jaw clenches and her eyes flash with inner conflict. “You want to make Kryptonite.”

“Yes,” she confesses, refusing to lie to the two most important people in her life regarding the third most important person in her life. “I’m making a device…it’s sort of like an insulin pump, but it’ll feed into her aorta and deliver carefully measured doses of Kryptonite into her bloodstream at whatever concentration I set. I can have it ready in a few hours.”

“And the Kryptonite?” Kara clips, her nostrils flared.

“Shouldn’t take much longer than the device.”

The superhero stands, scoffing and crossing her arms over her chest. “That…you could _hurt her_. There’s no guarantee that the Kryptonite won’t hurt Sam, too. Like, really, really—have you…you have _no_ idea how much Kryptonite hurts, Lee. It’s excruciating, it’s…and Sam shouldn’t have to go through that. Not if she doesn’t have to. Not—”

“Okay,” Alex interjects. “Okay. Then let’s test it, yeah? Before we wake up Sam, let’s run some tests, try some things, figure out if hurting Reign hurts our friend, too. We have time.”

“Kryptonite is not the answer!”

The volume alone throws both scientists off, not to mention the desperate plea radiating through each phoneme.

“Kara—”

“It _hurts_ ,” Kara chokes, tears springing to her eyes. “It is pure, white hot pain. It feels—I won’t let you do that to Sam. I won’t. I won’t.”

She runs her fingers through her hair, turning away from Lena until all the brunette can see is strong, supple shoulders shuddering with tears under her crimson cape. It’s strange, confusing. Lena doesn’t understand fully where this is coming from—when she’d told Kara that she learned how to synthesize Kryptonite, she’d been shocked, but trusting. It didn’t elicit this sort of reaction, then, so Lena wonders why the alien is _now_ so broken up about information she already knew.

But of course, as always, Alex Danvers is so well in-tuned to her sister’s distress that she is already crossing the room to take Kara’s terrified, beautiful face in her strong, beautiful hands before the younger woman can even fully finish her sentence. She seems to know the exact source of Kara’s worry without any further questioning.

“Hey,” she coos. “Hey, it’s okay. We don’t know how yet, but Sam is different. If we can take her blood, then Kryptonite doesn’t hurt her. Okay? We know that much. But in order to keep Reign out, we need to take extraordinary measures.”

“Sam doesn’t deserve that pain.”

“No. No, she doesn’t. But Reign hurts her more than Kryptonite does. I don’t have to run any tests to know that. I do have to run tests to figure out how to keep Reign from hurting her, though, and in order to do that, we have to hurt Reign.”

The two share a sisterly moment. Their characteristic sisterly moment, at that—they stare into each other’s eyes and they have a whole conversation among themselves.

And yes, Lena has seen it happen before. Countless times, in fact. She heard it happen, just now, over the phone, and right after Kara had awoken from her coma, she pictured it in her mind’s eyes again, but she’d been on the other side of the wall, of the receiver, for the two most recent occurrences. She hadn’t _seen_ them, she’d imagined them.

Still, though. Although it has, indeed, been a while since she’s witnessed the exchange in person, she isn’t sure why, now, it feels like she’s seeing it for the first time. She isn’t sure why it causes all her complicated, repressed emotions and thoughts about Kara _and_ Alex to rocket to the surface like scuba divers about to get the bends.

She isn’t sure why it causes the memories and feelings she’d bottled up from that morning—the dream she had, waking up alone in bed but with Alex in her kitchen, that horribly muddying conversation she’d had with Sam—to explode violently, like she’d accidentally bottled it all up in two liters of Diet Coke and somehow the sight before her became a sleeve of Mentos she’d dropped into it.

 _God_ , it’s even ruining her ability to come up with coherent analogies for her internal experience.

Thus, just as she’d programmed her brain to do over years and years of pain and loss and denial, her defense mechanisms kick in, and she pushes away every single thought in her mind unrelated to the matter at hand and the scientific method required to remedy it.

“We’re getting ahead of ourselves here,” Lena interjects, clearing her throat and reaching back to secure her hair back in a tight, severe ponytail. “Let’s head down to the lab, go over the data, and come up with an actionable plan. We can debate crossing each moral bridge as we get to them.”

“We should take her to the DEO,” Alex argues.

“Purity would find her there in a second, Alex,” Kara sighs.

“Besides, my equipment is far more advanced. I assure you.”

“That’s not the point. If you’re right and she’s Reign—”

“You promised me, Agent Danvers,” Lena breathes harshly. “You promised me an open mind. I called you here so we could help our friend, not so you could lock her up and throw away the key.”

Though her jaw remains squared and her eyes remain fiery dark, she nods.

“Fine. You’re right. Sam stays here—for now.”

“I’ll take it.”

\----

The next forty-eight hours are tumultuous and taxing beyond belief for everyone but Sam, who spends them in a medically-induced coma.

They don’t sleep, they barely eat (except Kara, of course, who eats enough for all three of them). Alex and Lena all but lock themselves in the lab, hardly getting up from their stools unless to collect more samples or find another pen. The stress of it all leads to some arguing between them, but it’s atypical and usually easily mediated by Kara’s gentle intervention or not-so-gentle insistence that they feed themselves or take a short break. Other than those occasional spats, they work in tandem like a well-oiled machine, like they were made to save the world together.

The time comes, then, that there’s nothing left they can do while Sam is asleep.

Ruby’s been moved to Lex’s mansion, the DEO has been looped in, the tests have been run, the hypotheses have been confirmed. Now, the only thing left to do is to study Sam as Reign.

Oh, but first, they have to _tell_ Sam that she’s Reign.

Which leads to some tense logistics, because Sam doesn’t know Alex’s true profession or Kara’s secret identity, and now that they know Sam shares a body with Reign, they can’t reveal that information to Sam without potentially risking the information also being revealed to Reign.

“I want to be there for Sam,” Kara insists, arms crossed tight over her family’s crest.

“You will,” Alex comforts her. “As Kara Danvers, her friend who promised to have her back and help her through this.”

“And if she turns into Reign? The transformation is triggered by fear, by anger. Telling her the truth might upset her enough that suddenly you have a Worldkiller in the lab, ready to kill you both, and if I’m not there as Supergirl—”

“It wouldn’t be the first time you managed to sneak away and change costumes to save the day without anyone noticing,” Lena reminds her pointedly, one eyebrow quirked up. “If I recall, you did so on several occasions before you graced me with your secret.”

“And in the three seconds it takes for you to do that,” Alex pacifies. “I will be here. I have two red sun grenades and a shiny space gun to distract her with while Lena gets behind the force fields. I will protect her, Kara.”

Lena gulps subtly, feeling heat creep across her cheeks. She swears Kara looks over at her a second, curiously, as if she heard the sound, heard the increase in her heart rate, but whatever she makes of it, she doesn’t comment. Instead, she sniffs, stares down at the floor, her blonde hair falling in luscious curtains over her cheeks and past her chin. The sight breaks Lena’s heart.

“It won’t even come to that, Kara,” she says quietly, and the superhero’s chin tips up until their eyes meet. “The second we sense her getting upset, we’ll turn on the Kryptonite pump and increase the dosage when—or _if_ —it becomes necessary. It won’t hurt her unless she’s transformed, we’ve already made sure of that.”

“And it won’t hurt you unless you touch Sam while the device is on,” Alex reminds her for the umpteenth time, but her tone makes it clear the purpose of said reminder is not to alleviate her sister’s anxieties, but rather to warn her, reproach her preemptively. “So don’t. Touch. Sam.”

Rolling her eyes, Kara nods. “I _know_. Let me just go change and we can go back in the lab.”

She superspeeds off, and Lena sighs wearily.

“She’s going to touch her, isn’t she?”

“Oh, without a doubt.”

\----

Kara does touch Sam. She places reassuring hands on her knee, forearm. At one point, she even goes so far as to place a hand on Sam’s shoulder, mere inches away from the Kryptonite pump, and Lena can almost _feel_ the rage and anxiety pouring off the older Danvers as she watches the affectionate touch, knowing she can’t make any sort of fuss about it without revealing the blonde’s secret alien physiology.

Luckily, though, the device remains off while they break the news to Sam, because while she does get agitated, she appears too deep in denial to fully accept things.

Which means they have to go to plan B, which involves goading Sam into transforming by being unnecessarily cruel to her, then recording it and playing back the video on a loop for her until she accepts reality.

It isn’t pretty, but it’s effective.

Kara doesn’t stay in the room for that. She stands in the hall, waits to see if she’s needed to protect her sister and her best friend.

That was Alex’s idea, and it works out well. Lena doubts she could have been so cruel to Sam while her puppy dog Kryptonian watched her; it’s hard enough with Alex there, only made easier because Alex helps, Alex looks Sam in the eyes and tells her that as “an FBI agent,” as a protector of the people, she will never let Sam near Ruby again, she’ll sooner have her arrested and locked up and—

Anyway. It isn’t pretty, but it is effective. Likely more so because Kara stays in the hall.

\----

Once Sam accepts reality, she calls Ruby. She talks to her extensively, but vaguely, and once she hangs up, she looks at the two scientists, her eyes filled with tears and tenacity.

“Don’t tell me where she is. Just in case, don’t—don’t tell me where she is.”

They nod, misty-eyed as they agree. Then, Sam’s stare settles firmly on Alex.

“If anything happens to me,” she chokes. “Promise me you’ll take care of her.”

“Sam, no—”

“ _Promise me_.”

Alex shuffles her feet, at that, chancing a glance over at Lena before she clears her throat and meets Sam’s eyes, her own filled with just as much resolve.

“I promise,” she vows, sincere as Lena’s ever heard her sound. “If it comes down to it, if anything happens to you—I promise, from the bottom of my heart, that I will take care of Ruby. I will protect her, I will love her, and I will do right by her.”

Then, she sucks in a breath, takes the tablet from Lena’s hands, then steps purposefully in front of her body. She taps once, lowering the force field, then quickly steps into the cell before tapping again to raise the force field. Setting the tablet down, she crouches down next to Sam’s curled up body, placing a tender hand on her bony shoulder.

“But it’s not gonna come down to that, Sam. Lena and I are doing everything in our power to make sure it never, _never_ comes down to that, okay? Ruby is going to be safe, and so are you. Okay? We’re doing everything we can to—she’s gonna graduate the eighth grade next year, and we’re doing everything we can to make sure you’re there, screaming and clapping and probably embarrassing the hell out of her because she’ll be a teenager. We’re doing everything we can to make sure you have to deal with her being a difficult, angsty teenager who love you but pretends not to like you, so she lashes out and dates someone terrible just because you hate them, but then she comes around and likes you again. We’re gonna make sure you get to see her go to college, and get married, and do whatever and be whoever she wants. Okay? We are going to figure this out.”

Sam is full-on crying at this point, and she flings her arms around Alex and buries her face in the crook of her neck as the redhead shushes her, rubs her back, strokes her hair.

Lena watches in awe, refusing to allow herself to think too hard about any of it.

\----

“Bring up the fMRIs again.”

The raven-haired woman rolls her eyes, but pulls up the requested images, anyway. However, she can’t restrain herself from explaining, “We’ve checked these a hundred times, Alex. When Sam gets upset, her amygdala lights up like a Christmas tree until it doesn’t, and that’s when she switches over.”

“I know that,” Alex grumbles. “But look at the hypothalamus.”

She glances briefly at the denoted area, shrugging. “Well, yes, it makes sense that the whole limbic system will—”

“So it might not be exclusively an emotional response,” the redhead interrupts. “It isn’t just pain or fear, it could also be tied to a survival instinct. Body temperature, diving reflex.”

“But the hypothalamus is also involved in attachment response, maternal instinct,” Lena counters. “If she—”

“I don’t think Ruby was part of the Worldkillers’ plan,” Alex muses. “The unexpected shift in brain chemistry—”

“—might have delayed the onset of Reign.”

They stare at each other mournfully, unable to muster the courage to further explore this hypothesis and its implications.

“But it does mean,” Alex sighs. “That maybe electrocuting her isn’t the only way to bring out Reign.”

They experiment, then, with inducing hypothermia in order to trigger the transformation. Supergirl helps, eager for a solution that doesn’t involve causing Sam to suffer.

\----

After warming Sam back up enough to bring her back into her body, Alex and Lena are pouring over the data they collected during the most recent bout of Reign when Supergirl comes bursting into the lab.

“Alex,” she says curtly. “It’s Pestilence.”

Alex is up from her chair in milliseconds, apologizing profusely to Lena and insisting she’ll be back as soon as possible.

“I want to help,” Lena resists.

“You are. You’re helping right here, doing what we’ve been doing. We’ll keep you updated, and if we need any help on our end, we’ll let you know. I hope you’ll do the same.”

Lena agrees, after much debate, to stay in the lab and find an answer for how to stop Reign without hurting Sam.

Still, she worries about the Danvers sisters, and the new threat being posed to them.

And she has a right to worry, evidently, because within the next twenty-four hours, Alex falls ill.

Nothing could keep her in a lab, then.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!


	10. i think i wanna take you home, i wanna try on your clothes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena Luthor + crisis = epiphanies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I didn't exactly plan on this chapter playing out like this, but yesterday I had a burst of inspiration and wrote it all out and I've decided to roll with it.
> 
> This is much shorter than my usual update but woooo it's a hefty one. I was gonna save it for a couple more days but I'm an excitable puppy sometimes and couldn't wait to share it with y'all. I hope you enjoy.

“What’re you doing here?” Alex slurs, and the clearly drugged-up tenor of her voice brings a fond smile to Lena’s face, despite the circumstances. “You’re s’posed to be saving the world cuz J’onn and Kara won’t let me help.”

Lena continues walking toward the bed, meeting Kara’s eyes. The crystal blue oceans are swimming with pain and fear, and as soon as she reaches the alien, Lena places a tender hand on her wrist, tracing the hem of her sleeve with pale, slender fingers.

“I put Sam under sedation until I can get my partner in crime-fighting back,” she smirks, reaching out with her other hand to cup Alex’s clammy cheek. “Besides, if I recall, the last time one of the Danvers was harmed in the line of duty, I made the grave mistake of not holding vigil at her bedside, and I promised myself I’d never make that mistake again. So, here I am.”

“Here you are,” Alex beams dopily. Literally, because she’s obviously quite doped up. “You look so cute.”

“You are on drugs,” she retorts. “I haven’t showered in three days and I’ve barely slept for a week.”

“Yeah, you’re cute when you’re stressed out,” she doubles down. “Your face gets all scrunchy. S’cute.”

With a dry chuckle, and a “whatever you say, darling,” the businesswoman relents, then takes her hand off of Alex’s face, only to see it fall into a pout, so she sighs and returns it to the sweaty, paler-than-usual cheek.

“They won’t lemme help,” Alex continues to pout.

“You need to rest, dummy,” Kara snaps, though her chin quivers.

“She makes a good point. An aggressive approach, but a good point,” Lena agrees. “Just rest, okay, darling? Let us take care of you for once.”

"I told them not to gimme drugs but they did anyway."

Lena glances over at Kara and catches her mid-eye roll. "If they gave them to you, you probably needed them. We'd rather have you high than miserable."

Alex harrumphs, squirming a bit as her eyes droop to half-closed. “D’you find the enzyme?”

“No, not yet. We have to get you better first.”

“Whabout the valley? The one from Kara’s dreams?”

Lena again shoots a glance to Kara, but this time her eyebrows are furrowed in bemusement.

“What are you talking about?”

“Kara has dreams about the Worldkillers, she told me. I asked if she saw Pestilence’s face but she said no, just Reign and Purity and a dark valley. N’I think the valley is also the parallel dimension Sam goes to when Reign takes over her body.”

After that, she starts to cough violently, gripping her ribs and wincing in apparent misery.

“You should rest,” Lena insists, adjusting her pillows and tucking in her blankets in an uncharacteristic show of affection. “Please, try to sleep. Kara and I just have to go talk in the hall for a minute, but then we’ll be back. If you need anything, just call. You know she’ll hear you.”

“But m’sleepy.”

“Go to sleep, Alex,” Kara sighs, a hint of amusement in her voice, but because she knows her so well, Lena knows the superhero is barely restraining her tears, determined to stay strong for her sister. She also knows that resolve won’t last much longer.

They each place a kiss to Alex’s feverish forehead. She looks small, even a little pathetic, and at the same time that it terrifies her for what could come next, Lena can’t help but think it’s rather adorable to see the unflinching badass so vulnerable and delirious.

“My two favorite people,” she hums contentedly, closing her eyes and wriggling back into the pillows.

She opens her mouth again, as if she might keep talking, say something else sweet and unbidden that would further warm Lena’s cheeks and heart. Perhaps, the CEO wonders, she’ll share some private thought that she’d never otherwise voice, something that would embarrass her to no end if repeated to her in a more lucid state, so Lena will tuck it away and keep it for herself, a tiny token of Alex’s inner workings to treasure and never redeem. The concept delights her, almost irrationally so, in a way that reminds her of the compulsion one has in grade school to hunt down even the most banal details about your crush, to catalogue the minutiae of their life as if that makes you a part of it, as if knowing _about_ them is the same as knowing them, being with them.

Lena recognizes that compulsion, too, because she’d had it after she first met Kara. She’d wanted to learn everything about her. All the big picture stuff, of course—her hopes, her dreams, her fears, her traumas, her accomplishments, her habits, her quirks, her likes, her dislikes. But she also wanted to know whether she preferred buying groceries by making one big trip to the store or by taking several smaller trips throughout the week for just the few items she needed. She wanted to know if before she put away her socks, she matched them up and rolled them in a ball, or if she just shoved them loose in a drawer. On days she didn’t have to go anywhere or see anyone, did she bother to shower and get dressed? If she woke up late for work, what elements of her morning routine would she be willing to compromise on to save time, and which ones would she rather be late than deprive herself of? What did she do when she couldn’t fall asleep at night?

It didn’t take long for Lena to learn all those things and more about Kara. Kara only ever kept two secrets from Lena, and even those she couldn’t keep for long: first, she confessed to being Supergirl (which Lena already suspected, seeing as she devoted herself to studying and scrutinizing Kara’s every everything, and certain things just didn’t add up to any conclusion other than that the object of her affection was a superhero from another planet), then she admitted to being in love with Lena (only after the latter admitted to being in love with Kara, and so it would be rather hypocritical to count that as a secret). Even when Kara was struggling with her asexuality, she never kept it a secret, per se. She never lied, never obfuscated. There were merely steps to that process she had to take by herself before she could loop Lena in.

Alex Danvers, however, remains a bit more of a mystery, a harder nut to crack. Although that’s not saying much—being less open than Kara Danvers hardly makes you furtive. Lena knows plenty about Alex; she would even wager that she could probably count on one hand the people who know more about Alex than she does.

Still, suddenly, there’s a nagging pull in her chest that tells her she doesn’t know nearly enough. She suddenly realizes that her friend is sick and she doesn’t know what kinds of things the older woman likes when she’s sick. Does she like soup, or ice cream, or does eating make her feel worse? Does she like tea, or juice, or Gatorade? Does the non-drowsy kind of cough medicine make her feel capable of functioning again or does it wire her too much when she’d prefer to just sleep off her fever?

All at once, it hits Lena that she doesn’t know these things about Alex. There are so, _so_ many things she doesn’t know about Alex, and now she’s lying in the med bay, sick with something presently uncurable, and Lena may never get a chance to know these things about her.

She doesn’t even get a chance to hear another loopy divulgence, like she thought she might, because before Alex’s mouth can form more words, her eyes close and she drifts asleep, and the only morsel of hope Lena was holding onto disappears, at least for the time being, and she’s left with nothing but fear for the future and a disorienting sense of regret over wasting the past.

So she leans forward and presses another light kiss to the sleeping woman’s forehead, anchoring herself to the knowledge that she did manage to collect one new datum about Alex: she likes affection when she’s sick and dazed and suffering.

When she stands up, she feels a strong hand encircling her own, and she glances over to see Kara—brilliant, eternally optimistic Kara—looking like she’s barely keeping herself together, and Lena understands all too well that since the moment her older sister collapsed, Kara has put several solar systems worth of energy into doing an impression of her normal self, into maintaining a strong façade, into being something for her sister and everyone else to lean on, and now, with Alex asleep and the others nowhere to be found, it’s all catching up.

Now, Kara needs to fall apart. Her crystal blue oceans look more like dull grey voids as they stare deep into Lena’s soul, imploring her for permission.

And Lena grants it by wordlessly taking Kara’s hand and leading them into the first empty room she finds. Training room, interrogation room, men’s bathroom—she doesn’t even know what it is, because she’s too laser-focused on taking care of Kara, on giving her the safety to fall apart, on being someone she can trust to put her back together.

As soon as the door is locked behind them, Kara starts to cry, wrapping her arms around her own waist, and it’s a hell of a sight, to tears streaming down Supergirl’s cheeks and falling onto her family’s crest, a symbol of hope to so many on Earth, but Lena doesn’t even register it. She closes the distance between them with one long stride, tugging at Kara’s super-strong arms until they part and make space for her soft, pale arms to substitute. At first, the blonde hesitates, as if she’s unsure whether she’s allowed to hug back, but when Lena tightens her embrace and presses their bodies flush together, Kara finally swathes her arms around Lena’s waist, relaxing into her, burying her face in the crook of her neck and inhaling deeply.

Lena does the same. It’s the first time they’ve hugged in a long while, and it feels wonderful, like being wrapped in a freshly-washed blanket still warm from the dryer. Kara smells like an orchard after a rainstorm and she’s reminded of the way Kara explained her nonsexual attraction to Lena’s breasts, how she sees them like she sees the world’s most inviting bed, how she said they were soft and comfortable and represented an intimacy she felt honored to have with Lena.

The scientist in her appreciates she can’t ever know for certain how that experience is for Kara, but she imagines it’s somewhat akin to this experience she has now, of finding comfort in each other during a moment like this. Two of the most powerful women in the world, breaking down and building each other back up, supporting each other in the quiet privacy of their mutual trust.

It’s the true foundation of their relationship, and nothing could ever take it away or change it for the worse. Even if they had nothing else between them, they’d still have it, they’d still rely on it, because this kind of connection is not something one stumbles upon every day. It isn’t something found easily, especially not for women like them. They each have only had it with one other person. The _same_ person, it just so happens to be.

And that person is down the hall, fighting for her life.

They don’t speak. They don’t have to.

They merely cling to one another until Kara feels up to the task of pretending to be whole again, at which point they untangle their bodies, wipe each other’s tears, and head into the hall as if none of it ever happened. They move onto the next thing:

Saving Alex. Saving Winn. Saving the world. Stopping the Worldkillers without harming their human sides.

As for acknowledging and unpacking this tricky new discovery that the feelings she has for Kara now more closely resemble the feelings she used to have for Alex, and the feelings she has for Alex now more closely resemble the feelings she used to have to Kara?

Well. Lena decides she’ll just have to wrestle with that some other time.


	11. problems came when you gave it a name

There’s only so much help Lena can provide in the fight against the Worldkillers, and often, it makes her feel powerless, useless, like she might as well just get a pleated skirt and pom-poms, because if she’s spending so much time standing on the sidelines, she should at least find a some way to contribute.

When it comes to the science and analysis, she can help, but especially with Alex and Winn incapacitated for the time being, science and analysis seem to take a backseat. She does what she can to fill in for them, but Brainy doesn’t let her help much, and in any case, there isn’t a lot to do. It becomes about fighting, strength, numbers.

Though Lena can provide one thing, in that regard, which even Alex and Winn lack: her cunning.

She’s a chess prodigy, a genius who thinks steps ahead of everyone else, and, most importantly (at least in this particular context), she was raised by villains. By _Luthors_ , nonetheless, the closest equivalent Earth has to the Worldkillers conjured on Krypton.

So she does come in handy occasionally.

For the most part, though, she stays in the med bay, thinking. Contemplating. Trying to figure out what to do next, how to solve this puzzle when more and more pieces seem to turn up every hour.

At the insistence of just about everyone, she catches up on some sleep. Kara sets up a third bed in the bay for her, despite the CEO’s vehement protests—protests which die out after Kara physically lifts her up and sets her in the bed, because seconds after she does so, Lena is out cold. She sleeps for four hours then wakes up with a burst of inspiration.

“They’ll want to unite.”

She walks into the room where Supergirl, J’onn, and the Legion are conferring, her clothes askew and her hair looking like it’s never once seen a brush, and states this with absolutely zero context, like they do on those procedural one-hour dramas where people walk into rooms somehow privy to the conversation which happened before they arrived and provide the exact piece of information necessary to solve the mystery du jour and move the plot along. Except she has no idea what they were talking about before she walks in, and based on the bewildered expressions she’s met with, this simple yet vague statement has not demystified anything for them.

“The Worldkillers,” she scoffs, annoyed at having to explain herself on only four hours of sleep in what feels like months, before she’s even had a sip of coffee. “If Pestilence has been activated, it’s only a matter of time before Purity finds her. And once Purity finds her, the first item on their agenda will be finding Reign. Otherwise, they’re just Kelly and Michelle without Beyoncé, and nobody would buy tickets for that concert.”

The Legionnaires exchange looks.

“I thought the humans’ names were Julia and Sam?” Imra ponders, and Kara rolls her eyes.

“Mon-El, you taught them about Bon Jovi but not Destiny’s Child?” she teases. “Did you not listen to me once when we were together?”

“Look, my point is, at this rate, there’s a chance Purity will find Pestilence before we do. So, we should station resources at L-Corp for when they inevitably go looking for Sam. Reign. Whatever.”

“It’s a valid point, Miss Luthor,” J’onn rumbles, leaning against the table and squinting at Lena. “But right now, our priority is identifying and locating Pestilence, and I’m afraid taking precautions in anticipation of another attack might stretch our resources too thin.”

She bites her lip, daring to meet Kara’s eyes. “Then I’ll go.”

“ _Lena_ —” the blonde begins, taking a step toward her.

“I know the building’s security better than anyone, I can take extraordinary measures quicker than anyone. We need to keep Sam safe and away from them.”

“I’m not letting you do that. I’m not letting you go back there, when we know it could be a target, without anyone to—”

“I’ll protect myself,” Lena declares coldly, crossing her arms beneath her chest. “I have Kryptonite, remember? If the Worldkillers come, that should keep me safe at least until help arrives.”

“Alex needs you here, she—”

“Alex needs a _cure_ ,” Lena barks, noticing how Kara flinches at the sudden shift in tone. “She needs a cure, which means we need Pestilence’s DNA, and until you find out who or where she is, this is our only lead toward getting a piece of her.”

Supergirl narrows her eyes, standing tall and poising her fists on her hips as she considers Lena and her argument.

“I have one condition.”

Lena responds by raising one eyebrow.

“You have to be the one to tell Alex about your dumb plan.”

\----

“ _Dumb_.”

Lena finished sharing her plan with Alex about three minutes ago, and in that time, she has been met with nothing but incoherently strung together discouragements and snark, occasionally broken up by a cough.

“Dumb, and reckless. I’m s’posed to be the dumb, reckless one; you’re taking my job, and I already had a job taken cuz m’sick and they won’t let me do my job with a cut on my hand.”

“Yes, darling, it’s the cut on your hand that’s stopping you, not the dangerously high fever, or intermittent bleeding, or the fact that you can’t even stand without falling over.”

“I can help from a chair!”

Lena arches an eyebrow, lifting her hand to hold up two fingers in Alex’s line of vision. “How many fingers?”

“That’s what she said.”

Alex snickers uncontrollably, with Winn joining in from the other side of the room.

“Good one, Alex,” he comments hoarsely, coughing a few times afterward from the effort it takes to speak and giggle as he is. “I’d high-five you f’I could move.”

“S’the thought that counts.”

Lena sighs, feeling weary beyond her years as she rubs at her temples with the pads of her fingers.

“You have such pretty hands,” Alex muses, her voice sounding a little gurgle-y, like a sleepy child. Her eyes are almost completely glazed over and unfocused, dark shadows underneath them, but there’s still a strange glimmer to them that throws Lena for a loop. “Don’t go to L-Corp. Stay here and lemme keep you and your pretty hands safe.”

And as much as Lena wants to melt into that, as much as she wants to agree, to curl up in a chair next to Alex’s bed and hear every delirious utterance there is to hear, there’s a world to save, and more importantly, Alex could be dead by tomorrow if someone doesn’t get a piece of Pestilence.

So if it comes down to making Alex sad today, if it comes down to missing out on Alex today, Lena’s willing to make that sacrifice, because otherwise, she’ll miss out on a lifetime of Alex, and she still doesn’t know if Alex takes a glass of water to bed with her and puts it on the nightstand, or if she goes into the kitchen in the middle of the night to get water only if she wakes up thirsty—so really, the choice is pretty clear.

“This could be our only chance at getting your cure,” she sighs, brushing sweaty hair from the agent’s face. “You know I would never allow myself to die when there’s still a mystery to be solved.”

“Yeah,” she rasps out. “Too strong for that.”

“Exactly. So I’m going to go back to L-Corp, then, okay?”

“Mm. Will you semme a postcard?”

Smiling sadly, she continues to stroke Alex’s hair, trying to keep up a soft, comforting rhythm she hopes will help lull the sick woman to sleep, like rocking a baby. “Of course, darling. Always.”

As Alex falls asleep, Lena tries to regret her decision to slip a sedative into the sick agent’s IV, but seeing as it made for a far less painful confrontation for them both, she can’t really bring herself to do so.

\----

In order to keep her mind off of the Venn diagram of life-or-death situations she finds herself in, Lena busies herself in the L-Corp lab by developing an increasingly unique Kryptonite delivery system. It’s like pepper spray, but for Worldkillers, and it solves the problem of not having to get too close to them in order to protect herself.

Still, she’s certain that she can’t discharge it while Kara is in the room, which is a tricky obstacle, but one that is workable. She manages to carefully tailor the dispersal rate to match Supergirl’s estimated response time from the DEO to L-Corp—that way, she can spray, then signal watch, and hopefully, by the time Supergirl arrives, the air will be clear enough so as not to harm or weaken the Girl of Steel.

Of course, it also means that if Kara is late by even a few tenths of a second, Lena could find herself standing toe-to-toe with a fully-recovered Worldkiller she just pissed off with a face full of atomized Kryptonite, and it would be too late to spray again unless she wants to risk harming Kara.

Lena doesn’t consider that a _real_ possibility, though. Kara’s never let anything bad happen to Lena, and she has nothing but trust in her best friend to maintain her perfect streak.

\----

Not too long after finishing her Kryptonite spray and increasing security measures around Sam and the lab, Lena hears a chirp coming from the comms device that the DEO had insisted she take with her to L-Corp. Bracing herself, she presses on her ear to activate it.

“Any updates?”

“Lena!” comes Kara’s voice, only vaguely muffled by the strong winds around her. “We found Pestilence. She’s a doctor; a surgeon. Her name is Grace.”

“Okay,” Lena drawls out. “Where is she?”

“She’s heading toward an insurance company. I’m going to go talk to her.”

Pinching the bridge of her nose, Lena shakes her head. “You’re sure that’s the best idea?”

“Of course. She’s a doctor, she’s devoted her life to saving people. She—”

“—is heading straight to an insurance company, likely so she can kill the people there. You’re not going to be able to convince any doctor that insurance companies aren’t evil.”

“I have to try.”

“Jesus Christ, Supergirl,” Lena groans as the comms cut out.

Before her catastrophic worrying has a chance to rear its ugly head, she prepares for the inevitability that she’ll have another Worldkiller or two storming her lab within the hour.

\----

It’s close to three hours before anything happens, and Lena is all but crawling out of her skin by then. Her knees won’t stop bouncing, she’s certain she’s not blinking nearly as much as she normally does, and she’s accidentally pressed on the atomizer of her Kryptonite spray bottle no less than thrice after being needlessly jump-scared by ambient noise from her lab.

The last time, however, happens to be when she gets another chirp from the DEO-issued comms device.

“Yes? What’s the update?” she pleads desperately, not even caring about who might be on the other end.

“We didn’t get Pestilence,” Kara’s voice sighs. “But we did get her DNA.”

Lena practically collapses with relief. “Oh thank God. So Alex is okay?”

“She will be. And Winn, and all the others.”

She winces a little at her oversight. “Yes. Of course.”

“Purity came to her rescue. You were right. They’re going to try to unite.”

Casting a hesitant glance toward the still-unconscious Sam, Lena asks, “So what do we do next?”

“Mon-El, Imra, and a number of DEO agents I refuse to quantify, only because you’d get mad if you knew how many, are all stationed in or near L-Corp. We know they’re coming, we just don’t know when. We’re tracking Purity’s frequency, so as soon as we see they’re on the move, J’onn and I will be there. Did you evacuate the building?”

“As calmly as I could without raising suspicions or red flags. The only people left are security staff, as requested.”

“Good. Thank you,” Kara breathes. There’s a pause, then she adds, reluctantly, “Um. Alex wants to talk to you.”

Lena’s stomach drops at the blonde’s tone. “Is she mad at me?”

“You drugged me so you could sneak off to L-Corp and risk your life?!”

Despite everything, Lena finds herself grinning wider than she possibly ever has. “Alex. Thank God you’re better.”

“Don’t change the subject or I’m gonna kick your ass even harder when I next see you.”

“You can’t truly be angry with me for trying to find you a cure and save Sam, can you?”

“Don’t ask questions you already know the answer to.”

Somehow, her grin grows even wider. “You really are better, aren’t you?”

She can almost hear the returned smile in Alex’s voice as she replies, “Yeah. Me and Winn both. And as soon as my banana bag drains in…approximately ten minutes, I’m heading straight to you, so that I can protect you from the Worldkillers and then smack you upside the head for putting yourself in danger.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

\----

She gets a warning over the DEO comms when they detect the Worldkillers are on the move, but frankly, she doesn’t need it; she already knows they’re coming toward her when Sam’s vitals skyrocket and her eyes shoot open, glowing red. By the sheer fact that Sam is clearly no longer in the medically-induced coma—and, furthermore, no longer Sam—Lena derives that Reign is about to unite with the rest of her trinity.

It also helps as a clue that Supergirl, Alex, J’onn, and Mon-El all phase through the walls of her lab seconds later, when Lena is busy fumbling with her tablet to increase the concentration of Kryptonite pumping into Reign.

“How much time do we have?”

“Not long,” Supergirl declares.

“Imra is projecting a psychic field around the building, but it won’t hold them for long,” Mon-El informs her.

“We need to get you somewhere safe,” Alex adds, somehow already at Lena’s side, her hands on pale elbows, bodily leading her away from Sam’s containment.

“ _Alex,_ what are you—?”

Her protests are cut off by a series of loud, distant crashes. Alex abruptly pushes her underneath a heavy lab table.

“Stay down!”

“I—”

Alex pulls her gun from her holster as she glares frostily at the huddled CEO. “Increase the Kryptonite another five percent, and then _stay_ _down_. So help me God if you don’t stay the fuck down.”

Then she charges toward the impending fight before Lena can think to argue any more. Instead, she does as she’s told—she adjusts Reign’s pump and presses her back against the cold metal backing of the table, wishing she had x-ray vision so she could see through and know what the hell is happening. There are far too many people and far too much chaos to decipher through sounds alone, not to mention the intermittent screeching by Purity—she’d been warned the frequencies were painful, but she had, irrationally, assumed the DEO was exaggerating about that. Even when Purity isn’t actively emitting her excruciating soundwaves, the pandemonium is constant. Shouts from each side combine with grunts and groans and crashes and cracks and slams and shots and the unique buzzing of Kryptonian heat vision as the battle rages on around her.

It takes all her self-discipline to stop from bursting up and joining it—well, that and the knowledge that she’d only be a nuisance, a distraction. Alex and Kara would focus on protecting her instead of fighting the Worldkillers, and she’s certain that would take away more from their side than Lena herself could ever add. So though it kills her to remain hidden behind a desk while her two favorite people clash with an evil alien inhabiting the body of her third favorite person, she recognizes that it’s the wisest option.

Even at those times when she can hear, feel, and see the metal rattling around her, and whether it’s from residual vibrations or soundwaves or something (or someone) knocking into the desk, she’s never sure, but she trusts if it were anything too serious or she were in any real danger, she’d find herself in the strong arms of a Danvers sister or one of their alien compatriots instead of cowering defenselessly under a table.

Then, she hears Supergirl, tapping into her terminal optimism, trying to appeal to Purity, and as she does, although the conflict continues, the world seems to pause.

“Julia? Julia, I know you’re in there, somewhere. Please, listen to me. You have to fight. You have to fight it, Julia.”

And then, somewhere else in the room, she hears Alex, channeling her sister’s terminal optimism, trying to appeal to Reign.

“Sam, please. Sam, think of Ruby. Think of your daughter. She’s scared, and she misses you, and she needs you. Please, Sam, think of Ruby. She’s still growing up, and you’re missing it. You’re missing her. Come on, you can do it. Fight it, fight back. You can do it, Sam.”

No one tries to appeal to Pestilence, and Lena wonders if she was right. If her instinct about Grace was right.

She does as best she can to listen to nothing else but the sounds of Alex and Kara pleading with Reign and Purity. There’s more going on, but she tries to filter it out, tries to imagine a world where they actually manage to stop the villains without hurting the human bodies they inhabit.

Until all of a sudden, there is a momentary din of silence, followed by:

“Sam, Julia, no!”

And then a series of piercing, gut-wrenching screams.

The next few minutes don’t exist for Lena. Maybe she goes into shock, maybe she even blacked out. She’s sure _something_ happens in that span, but instead, the next thing she knows, Alex is hunched over her, a sheepish expression on her face, offering out a hand to help Lena up.

“Hey, so…how long would it take us to make another batch of supercharged Kryptonite and fashion another couple pumps?”

Lena finds a beam splitting her face without her consent. “You got them?”

Alex shoots her a matching, lopsided grin. “We got ’em.”

\----

“You haven’t smacked me upside the head yet.”

The quip breaks a long-standing silence between the scientists, who had been thus far deeply concentrated on the tasks before them.

Alex clicks her tongue in response. “I mean, don’t make a big deal out of it, but I kinda prioritize keeping you alive and keeping the Worldkillers contained over being angry with you. So unless you think it’ll motivate you to work faster, I’ll save the head-smacking for after the hostiles are subdued more…enduringly.”

Lena knows what she’s referring to, of course. Right now, Sam and Julia are under deep sedation in the same containment, which couldn’t dream of holding them if they both transform, and Pestilence, whose human side remains resistant to sympathetic negotiations, is locked in the impenetrable, lead-lined vault where Lena keeps her Kryptonite. Between J’onn and the Legionnaires, they’d managed to muscle her in there, but it would only be a matter of time before she developed enough of an immunity that not even the vast amounts of Kryptonite surrounding her could thwart her escape.

Because as it happens, the Worldkillers evolve in real time. In a matter of weeks, they could be entirely immune to the one substance that has thus far proven the least bit effective in combatting them.

It will take a lot of work, a lot of trial-and-error, a lot of newer and fresher ideas, to keep “the hostiles subdued,” so to speak, and while part of Lena is energized by the challenge, still another part of her is deeply unsettled by the reality that for once, she will not be working alone under these high pressure circumstances—instead, she will be working in close proximity with Alex Danvers.

Who she recently realized she might have one or two non-platonic feelings for.

Lena works well under pressure. She perhaps works her best under pressure, but she’s normally more of a solo show, a one-woman operation, so she fears that when you add another woman into the mix—well, she isn’t worried about the results, because Alex is also at her best under pressure, she has an even higher pressure job than Lena, clearly. But she is, maybe, a little worried about accidentally encouraging the non-platonic feelings she has, such that they reproduce and stop being only one or two and expand exponentially and infinitely until they all but burst from her chest and she’s rendered absolutely catatonic by her desire to kiss Alex.

Which would sound silly to her, if it weren’t for the fact that it’s _exactly what happened to her_ when the same feelings blossomed for Kara.

Except she can’t think about Kara, because what a terrible way Lena has chosen to betray Kara, by falling for her sister, even though she didn’t technically choose it, but she’s still letting it happen, but if she did kiss Alex that would be a choice, so she can’t do that, obviously. She just has to work alongside her for god-knows-how-many days and witness her immaculate, impressive brain work come up with countless immaculate, impressive solutions, which should be easy enough, except that it will be _impossible_ and probably even harder than finding a way to stop the Worldkillers.

“Well,” she coughs. “If you’re not going to smack me, am I safe to ask you to pass me that soldering iron?”

“What if I smack you with the soldering iron?”

“Oh, I think I’d have to do something far more egregious before you’d take such extraordinary measures.”

 _Stop flirting, Luthor_. Why is it so hard for her to _not_ flirt with Alex?

The agent merely smirks and slides the requested tool over to Lena, who slips on her lab goggles and gulps reflexively when she realizes that even the action of putting on the protective gear did not break the eye contact they held. She flips on the iron, still without breaking eye contact, tapping it needlessly on its sponge as it warms up.

“So…you’re feeling okay?”

The redhead frowns a little at that. “A little dizzy, still. But I’ll live, which is more than I could’ve said just this morning.”

Lena smiles sadly, reservedly. “I’m glad to hear it.”

They work in silence for a bit, and the CEO tries to focus on soldering her circuit board and not the questions burning bright through her mind, but it grows more and more difficult, so she clears her throat and allows herself to casually, shallowly, breach the subject.

“Agent Danvers, did you know you get quite affectionate when you’re sick?”

Alex blushes furiously at that, ducking her head in a futile attempt to hide it. “Um…yeah, I did know that, actually. The one time I got sick when Maggie and I were together, we got in a big fight because I just wanted to cuddle in bed with her but she was afraid of getting sick, so I had Kara come over to watch movies on the couch with me, and then Maggie took it as some personal attack.”

At the memory, her jaw squares, and her typing grows more aggressive. Lena knits her brows together.

“She was angry with you for meeting your own needs while also respecting her boundaries?”

“She tended to get sensitive about Kara.”

“You mean jealous,” Lena corrects gently, and the older woman smirks.

“Yeah, sure. I mean, I get it. To an outsider, the relationship I have with Kara is bound to be…daunting. How could you ever compete or compare?”

“Why would anyone want to compete or compare?” Lena counters. “It’s not a competition, and it’s certainly not a comparison. She’s your sister. She’s your favorite person, she’s your whole life. Of course she’s always going to come first, of course she’s always going to know you better than anyone else does. Why waste your energy being threatened by the beautiful connection the two of you have, when you could admire and embrace it instead?”

“Sounds like you put a lotta thought into this, Luthor.”

The words, along with the accompanying simper, cause Lena to blush deeply, averting her eyes as she stammers carelessly, looking for any response that wouldn’t completely blow her cover.

“So you weren’t jealous at all? When you were dating Kara?”

“Of you?” Lena teases. “Never.”

Alex rolls her eyes.

“You don’t get as far as I’ve gotten in business without knowing when to pick your battles. I’d rather fight _for_ the person I love than fight against them and the things important to them.”

She’s met with silence at first, with Alex merely tilting her head, squinting at her, scrutinizing her. When the agent finally does reply, her voice is low, almost grave.

“What if fighting for the person you love involves fighting against the things important to them?”

Lena sucks in a slow breath. “I find situations like that are rarely so black-and-white, Agent Danvers.”

“Oh, just fuck each other already.”

Both women whip their heads around to the containment cell, where Reign has broken through sedation and is pulling at her chains, sneering at them both.

“You weak, pathetic humans, always slaves to your basest impulses. It’s no wonder the depravity infesting this planet has gone unchecked for so—”

Her tirade is abruptly cut off with an agonized shout as her body shocks rigid, her spine snapping back into a taut arch before she collapses in a heap back against the table, the network of her vascular system glowing green through the skin of her chest and neck until her eyes flutter closed and her body goes limp with sleep.

Lena turns to see Alex, her mouth set in a harsh line, gradually lowering the Kryptonite saturation, satisfied that Reign is sedated again.

“We should get back to work,” the agent states brusquely, deliberately avoiding eye contact with Lena, who’s far too taken aback by all that just went down to argue.

It takes her a few beats, but she eventually settles, puts her head down, and devotes herself to two, solemn goals:

  1. Save Sam
  2. Never, ever, _ever_ let her guard down like that again.



\----

The following days are grueling. Containing all three Worldkillers proves to be a monumental undertaking, especially when the room is so irradiated with trace Kryptonite that Supergirl’s exposure must be limited. J’onn proves of great help, but only in the brute force required to temporarily down the villains, not so much in the science of doing so permanently.

No, it’s Lena who makes the most important breakthrough in that department.

And when she makes it, she stands from her stool, abruptly, breaking an hours-long silence between herself and Alex, her eyes wide with wonder, but she keeps as straight of a face as she can as she announces, “Look, I hate to admit it, but I am…stuck. I’m getting absolutely nowhere here, and I—coffee. I think coffee will help. Would you like some coffee, Agent Danvers?”

To her credit, Alex seems to innately interpret the code: _I figured something out, but I’m afraid if I say it here, lest the very monsters we are trying to stop will hear me._ So, Alex nods.

“Yeah, absolutely. I can’t remember the last time I slept. Or…saw the sun.”

“Coffee it is, then.”

They keep up the charade until the elevator, hoping the distance and excessive security measures will protect them from being overheard by any evil Kryptonian ears. Lena launches into her explanation, and Alex listens attentively, barely offering up a word.

“So I we just find the right heavy metal for the delivery system, we can separate their DNA,” Lena concludes. “I’m thinking lead. Something about their star system and lead, it always seems to be the thing— _why are you shaking your head like that_?”

“Don’t you remember from when you worked with Rhea?”

“You mean from when Rhea tricked me, but go on.”

Alex rolls her eyes. “Krypton, like Daxam, had access to easily two hundred more elements than we do. Even ancient, pre-science Krypton. Reversing this probably involves some space element that we won’t be able to get our hands on.”

Lena scrubs her face. “Great. Well, that’s just great.”

She pulls her hands away, a sinking feeling hitting her in slow motion. Her stomach feels like it’s going to drop down in opposition to the rising elevator, and an endless pit of emptiness takes over in its place.

“I’m never going to save her, am I?”

Alex’s hand clasps onto her shoulder, and the touch grounds her, a bit, but parts of her still stand at risk of floating away, until the agent pronounces, sternly, with no room for doubt or question or argument:

“You are. You are going to save her, because if anyone _can_ save her, it’s you. Lena Luthor, you are the smartest, strongest, most clever, creative—and I’ll beat any motherfucker to death who tries to say differently, including you, so, watch your mouth, please.”

Lena shakes her head, and to her endless mortification, feels herself beginning to cry. She doesn’t want to, of course, but she feels far too weak and weary to fight the tears that erupt to the surface, and soon enough, she slumps against Alex, barely able to hold up her own body weight anymore, instead trusting the taller woman to do it for her—which she does, of course wrapping strong arms securely around the limp, weeping body.

“Hey, hey, Luthor. It’s okay. You’re okay. You’ve just been working too hard for too long.”

As the elevator doors _ding_ open on the lobby level, Alex reaches over, pressing the button to bring them to the top level.

“How bout we forget the coffee and you catch a nap in your office instead?”

“I—”

“Non-negotiable, I’m afraid.”

Once the doors close again, Alex’s arm returns to holding Lena tight, her fingertips soothing up and down her spine, coaxing away every shred of resistance the younger woman has. Within a few minutes, Lena finds herself laying down on her pristine white couch, covered in a leather jacket that smells deliciously of Alex Danvers, the agent herself perched on the coffee table in front of her, stroking her hair.

“Alex—”

“Ssh, just rest that pretty little genius head of yours.”

A thumb strokes across Lena’s cheekbone, and she feels her tears only as they’re being wiped away. “I’m scared.”

“Further evidence of how damn smart you are.”

“After my mom died,” Lena hears herself say, though her voice sounds small and broken and rough. “There were a few weeks before Lionel came to take me away. I don’t remember a lot but…I was with family. Aunts, and uncles, and cousins. They didn’t know what to do with me. They didn’t…they took care of me, but I think they just felt sorry for me. I don’t think they wanted me. Once Lionel—he sent a check to my mom every month. When the check came, my aunts figured out who he was, and they sent him a letter. He came to get me a week later, and he took me home with him, not because he wanted me, but because it was the right thing to do. He didn’t want me, either. Lillian certainly didn’t—I felt like such a burden. To everyone. Nobody knew what to do with me, how to take care of me, how to treat me. Nobody wanted me. I didn’t even want me.”

She finally looks up, her eyes blurry, but she can see clearly the concern written all over Alex’s face.

“Lena, I—”

“I don’t want that to happen to Ruby,” she breathes. “I don’t want Ruby to feel like a burden. It’s enough to lose your mother, you shouldn’t have to—”

“That’s not gonna happen to Ruby,” Alex promises. “Ruby is not a burden, she is a blessing, and I swear on my own life, I will never let her feel like anything less than that.”

“What if it’s not up to you?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Sam doesn’t have any legally binding arrangements made. She doesn’t—Ruby could end up in the system, or—”

“Don’t worry about that,” Alex interjects, cupping Lena’s cheek. “I promised Sam I’d take care of Ruby, and I have every intention of keeping that promise. By any means necessary.”

Suddenly, Lena feels _very_ awake. “What does that mean?”

“You know who I work for.”

“ _What does that mean_?”

Alex blushes a bit, exhales sharply. “It’s possible I might have forged some legal documents. Just in case.”

Lena’s brows knit together. “You forged legal documents?”

“Yes. Appointing me as Ruby’s legal guardian should anything happen to Sam. They’re signed and notarized and _should_ anything happen to Sam, they will materialize and become accessible to all government agencies, along with the necessary paper trail, as part of the inevitable DEO cover-up for the circumstances surrounding whatever happened to Sam.”

Slowly, Lena starts to sit up, only to have Alex ease her back down, tucking the jacket further around her body.

“Alex, that—”

“Look, tell me you wouldn’t do the same thing. Look me in the eyes, and honestly tell me that after hearing what Sam said to me after we told her about Reign…tell me you wouldn’t do the same thing. If you can tell me that, or if you can honestly tell me you don’t think this is what Sam would want…then I’ll call the whole thing off. But Lena—I promised her. I promised her, and yeah, it’s a contingency plan I never hope to employ, but it’s one I can’t afford to not have in place. Prepare for the worst, hope for the best, right? Especially when there’s an innocent, sensitive, perfect child involved, one who deserves all the love and care in the world. If Sam is our priority, then Ruby has to be, too, because Ruby is Sam’s priority, first and forever. Can you honestly tell me she’d object to this?”

Lena bites her lip, overwhelmed by the sight before her: the most beautiful, headstrong woman in the world, in her absolute element, her eyes blazing and fierce, her voice steady and commanding. Unwavering, unflinching. Staunchly loyal, devoted to caring for everyone who matters, no regard for her own desires or needs.

To make matters worse, she’s surrounded by the scent of her. Alex always smells like a tropical paradise, like coconut and salty waves and sun-caressed sand, and her jacket smells just like her, with the added fragrance of sleek leather thrown into the mix, and Lena’s finding it hard to think of any way to react to Alex’s speech other than diving into the beautiful ocean of her, kissing her senseless and exploring the warm depths of her mouth, finding out if she tastes even half as irresistible as she smells.

But she can’t—not without talking to Kara first. It wouldn’t be fair, it wouldn’t be—besides, who the hell is she kidding? Alex Danvers doesn’t want her. Alex Danvers could never want her; it was a miracle in and of itself that one Danvers sister ever fell in love with her. Lena isn’t exactly deserving of their level of goodness, their level of perfection, their level of devotion.

And Alex…Alex is so much more. Kara loves Lena because Kara sees good in everything, in everyone. She is terminally optimistic and hopeful and brings out the best in everyone. She refuses to ever see anything wrong with Lena, almost blinded by her love.

Alex? Alex sees Lena. She _knows_ Lena, understands her faults, even _shares_ them, in some cases, and yet Alex is still there. Still by her side, comforting her, praising her. Alex is a realist at best and a cynic at worst, and yet she hasn’t written off the youngest Luthor, at least not so far.

Lena could never deserve the love of someone like that, and as such, she understands that Alex didn’t love her—Alex loves Kara, would do anything for Kara, and since Kara loves Lena, Alex has to indulge that, has to love her in a way that is demanded by Kara. No more, no less. Alex could never love Lena romantically, or even of her own volition—whatever love Alex feels for Lena, if any, is solely for Kara’s sake.

To attribute it to anything else, Lena is sure, would be an act of hubris.

“Thank you, Alex,” Lena smiles wearily, feeling a pang in her chest, wishing the older woman understood the extent of her gratitude.

“Don’t thank me,” Alex smirks, keeping her steady rhythm, stroking raven hair. “Just get some sleep for me, okay?”

She moans, feeling the exhaustion wash over her once again. Her eyes—hell, her whole body—become heavy and useless as she succumbs to it, and before she can stop herself, she murmurs, “K. For you.”

Then, before she even realizes what she said, she falls into a deep, much-needed slumber.

A slumber in which she dreams, once again, of being wrapped in the arms of Alex Danvers, and beyond that, dreams of being fucked by Alex Danvers.

Which, basically, means that she’s fucked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At this point I'm just a big ole softie and they're taking turns taking care of each other, apparently??


	12. it's like crashing your car while adjusting your seatbelt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long time no see, friends.
> 
> So, I found myself struggling a lot trying to write this chapter, until I realized that I was struggling with trying to get the whole Worldkiller storyline out of the way so I could go back to advancing the AgentCorp plot. Eventually, after spending way too long stressing about it, I decided to just...do that. All this is to say that the first chunk of this chapter is rather utilitarian, and if it seems like the resolution is quick, convenient, and/or anti-climatic, it's because it is! I did it on purpose, so I could focus on the things I wanted to write instead.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy.

It’s been nothing less than painful for Lena, to not be able to kiss Alex Danvers.

Winn built her a new suit—apparently, while drugged in the med bay with him, Alex lamented thoroughly enough about how everybody else got a cool suit that Winn eagerly took to the task of making her one—and she looks utterly _irresistible_ in it, and yet Lena still can’t kiss her, because the universe _hates her_ , evidently, otherwise she wouldn’t keep falling for people with whom she has no chance.

They’ve been at it for weeks. It's a group effort, but primarily, the bulk of Lena's time is spent side-by-side with Alex Danvers and her Certainly-Not-Helping new suit, trying everything they can think of to cure Sam, Julia, and yes, even Grace, of their Worldkilling alters.

It’s relentless, exhausting, and constantly evolving.

Frankly, it far-too-closely parallels Lena’s desire to kiss Alex Danvers.

Luckily, things eventually get too chaotic for any other thought to penetrate Lena’s mind other than saving humanity. Because Thomas Coville’s old cult turns out to be even more nefarious than previously demonstrated and try to build a Worldkiller. Then, after they manage to power through that debacle, it turns out that their best hope yet to maybe save the world involves Kara and Mon-El, of all fucking people, flying to some distant planet in search of some mysterious black rock.

It takes the superhero about a day to return, but it feels like an eternity to the scientists who love her.

Of course, as the old saying goes, time feels twice as long when you’re being incessantly goaded by evil extraterrestrials hellbent on eviscerating your planet.

From her seemingly-invisible cage, Reign does everything she can to convince Lena that their attempts will fail, to convince Lena that the only way to destroy the Worldkillers is to destroy their human alters, as well. She taunts the scientist, telling her she’s weak, pathetic, _human_ , that she doesn’t have what it takes to save the world because she doesn’t have what it takes to kill her friend, even if her friend isn’t her friend anymore.

At first, Lena can ignore it. She can tune it out until it’s little more than an ambient annoyance akin to someone in line behind you talking loudly on their cellphone, but it gets harder and harder as Reign gets stronger and stronger, gets more and more resistant to each and every new upgrade to the most advanced L-Corp technology which keeps her locked up.

It’s approaching a point where Lena’s running out of new ideas to keep the Kryptonians contained without crossing into dangerous, Lex-esque territory.

Luckily, she has Alex Danvers on her side. Not only to bolster her confidence and aid her research and supply further brainpower, but also, with increasing frequency, to fight her battles for her, too.

So more than a few times, Reign gets interrupted in her ultradian ritual of belittling Lena in ways that the CEO thought only Lillian ever could. Whenever Alex happens to be in the room, she cuts off Reign’s megalomaniacal tirade to remind her that even if Lena is too good to kill Reign/Sam, Alex isn’t. Alex is a soldier, trained to make impossible decisions for the greater good, trained to live with that responsibility, that burden.

Moreover, Alex reminds Reign, she promised Sam that she’d protect Ruby above all else, even if that meant killing Sam.

It manages to shut Reign up most of the time.

It does _not_ manage to shut up the little voice in Lena’s head encouraging her to ravage the redhead until they both die.

Ultimately, the ensuing battle comes down to converting Grace. Supergirl manages to convince even the most soul-broken versions of Sam and Julia to garner the strength to vanquish their respective possessors, but Grace resists. However, thankfully, without Reign and Purity, Pestilence loses strength, and Grace’s better angels eventually come through and overtake the last of the trinity.

By the time it’s all said and done, when Brainy matter-of-factly declares that the future has been saved, Lena feels like she might collapse immediately onto the floor from exhaustion. Instead, she finds herself the filling in a Danvers Sister Sandwich, with both Alex and Kara embracing her, and each other, tightly and cathartically. Their enthusiasm makes it a little difficult for Lena to get a full breath in, but she welcomes it, allowing herself to become near dead weight between them, held up solely by their combined, world-saving strength.

At least, for a few minutes.

After that, Kara takes them aside. Tells them both what she discovered on the distant star where the black rock exists. Tears stream from all six eyes as Kara proclaims that her mother is alive, that her hometown exists somewhere far off in the stars, that her old home helped save her new one.

Then, before Alex and Lena have any chance to process this new information, Kara abruptly changes the subject. She suggests almost antithetically that they celebrate immediately, but something about her approach doesn't seem genuine, something Lena can’t quite place. The earnest blonde isn’t radiating the kind of palpable excitement prototypical of only Kara Danvers and puppies who know they’re about to go for a walk, so the shrewd scientist knows something is wrong with her former girlfriend, but she can’t exactly pinpoint what it is, likely because she’s so tired she might already be asleep. So in response to the invitation, she humbly requests that they sleep tonight and celebrate tomorrow.

Though frankly, she wonders if she’ll be awake by then.

She lets Alex handle the reunion between Ruby and Sam. Fucked up as it is, Lena can’t imagine bearing witness to their happiness, their _relief_ , when all she wants to do is crawl into bed and hate herself for having emotions.

Because she fucking _hates_ herself for having these emotions.

Not to mention that seeing Sam and Ruby’s heartfelt reunion will probably cause Alex to do that thing that Alex Danvers does, where she half-smiles and half-cries, and if Lena sees her do that, it will rip her tender little bisexual heart to shreds, and she’ll likely never recover from it, so it’s best if she keeps her distance.

And _Christ_ , why does her useless sapphic behavior exponentially increase with every lost night of sleep?

As the final cherry atop the testament to what a goddamn journey it’s been, Lena doesn’t even protest when Kara insists upon personally flying her home. The superhero is ready with all the typical excuses— _“It’s really no trouble!”_ and _“It’ll only take a few seconds!”_ and _“It’s just the better option than a car, really, economically and environmentally”_ —but they fall on deaf ears. The CEO puts up no fight at all, and as such, less than a minute after she announces that her only desire is to go home and sleep, she finds herself in her penthouse, sitting on the edge of her bed, with Supergirl rifling through her drawers in search of what she knows are Lena’s favorite sleeping clothes.

“Do you wanna shower first, or—?”

“No,” Lena mumbles, accepting the oversized, worn tee shirt that used to serve as Lex’s uniform for his robotics team when he was a sophomore in high school, but now served as the only happy token of him that she hung onto, because of the time in the third grade when she got very, _very_ sick and Lex had taken care of her, and after she’d puked on half her clothes, he’d dressed her in that shirt, and she’d cherished it for over fifteen years without ever telling that story to anyone but Kara.

“You want your red sweats or the butterfly boxer shorts?” the alien asks fondly, helping Lena unbutton her clothes while maintaining gentle, affectionate, caring eye contact.

“Red sweats,” she murmurs back, slipping the tee shirt over her head and reclining onto the bed, shamelessly allowing her ex-girlfriend to undress her from the waist down. “But leave the window open when you go?”

“Duh,” Kara replies, the knowing smile audible in her voice. “And I’ll turn your rainforest machine on, and plug your phone in, and make sure your doors are locked, so you don’t have to worry about anything at all, okay? Only sleeping. You already saved the world, all you have to worry about is you, now.”

“You saved the world,” Lena protests. “I just did some math.”

“I couldn’t have done any of the things I did without your help,” Kara asserts, squeezing her pale shin in emphasis. “Which means you saved the world just as much as I did.”

Lena merely grunts in acknowledgement as the superhero tugs her sweatpants up her legs. Once that task is complete, Kara ever-so-gently picks up the tiny brunette, resting her head on the pillows and tucking her into bed.

“I’d never have gotten this far without you, Lena,” Kara whispers brokenly, and it sounds almost melancholic, or nostalgic, but the businesswoman is too tired to detect nuance. “You are one of the most important things to ever happen to me, and I’m forever indebted to you, and I love you so, so much.”

“Love you back, jus’ as much,” Lena manages to gurgle before she succumbs to sleep.

And so she doesn’t notice the look of absolute, catatonic guilt that passes over her best friend’s face.

\----

It’s hard to say how long she sleeps, because she doesn’t really recall when exactly she was placed in her bed, but if she has to ballpark it, she’d say she sleeps a long ass time.

She sleeps past noon, at least, and the last time she slept past noon was—well, she’s not sure she’s ever slept past noon. Even in her rebellious teen years, her stick-it-to-the-man-niosis manifested more in the form of never sleeping at all, rather than having indulgent lie-ins. Otherwise, she either attended strict boarding schools or lived with Lillian “send-the-maid-in-at-dawn-to-make-your-bed-even-if-you’re-still-in-it” Luthor such that by the time she reached college, even at her precocious age, she kept a regimented sleep schedule.

Back then, though, she only dreamed of saving the world, and as she’s rapidly learning, dreaming takes a lot less energy than doing.

Unless, of course, she’s dreaming of getting fucked by Alex Danvers, which takes so, so, _so_ much energy, because she has to use every, every, _every_ ounce of her energy to keep herself only dreaming it and never, ever, _ever_ doing it.

So, obviously, a few hours after Lena wakes up (but only about an hour after she actually dragged herself out of bed, and about two minutes after she finished her post-hellscape victory shower), there’s a knock at her door.

And, _obviously_ , it’s Alex Danvers.

Except she looks…different. She still holds a black plastic bag with a brown paper bag in it, as is typical of her visits, but she seems…off. Empty, or lost, maybe. Like the reason she’s here isn’t because she thinks Lena needs it (which is her normal excuse) but because she knows _she_ needs it, and that strikes the younger woman as odd, because when Alex needs someone, she runs to Kara.

She doesn’t run to Lena with a bottle of what is almost certainly top-shelf whiskey.

And suddenly, it hits Lena like a ton of bricks.

“Kara wants to go to Argo, doesn’t she?”

They hadn’t even exchanged greetings yet, but the grave look in Alex’s eyes, plus the bags underneath them, seem to forgive Lena for her tactlessness. Because it isn’t tactless, really—it’s only accurate.

“She says she’ll come back,” Alex chokes.

“But you’re not sure.”

The redhead bites her lip. “Can I come in?”

Lena hesitates; she really, really wants to say yes, to be around the only person with whom she can commiserate, the only person who she knows will make her feel better, but it seems…impossible, really. Alex is too pretty, too smart, too irresistible, and the only way Lena had successfully avoided making a fool of herself so far is through sheer distraction. Now that there’s no world to save, no friends to un-Worldkiller, how the fuck is she supposed to _not_ kiss Alex?

Perhaps the look of utter heartbreak and agony in Alex’s eyes will have to be distraction enough.

“Yeah,” Lena finally utters, stepping aside to let her in. “Go relax on the couch, I’ll get us some glasses.”

The downtrodden woman trudges over to the couch, and as a testament to their familiarity, dumps her motorcycle helmet on the first flat surface she sees, then peels off her jacket and toes off her boots only after sitting down. Lena spares a smile at that, trying to imagine anyone other than a Danvers sister who would feel so at home in the CEO’s stark penthouse.

She doesn’t allow herself to think on how one of those two people will soon be on an entirely different planet; she suspects it will take a while for that to truly sink in.

When Lena pads across the room—she’d only just started to put on clothes when the doorman called that she had a visitor, so her subsequent outfit choice was slapdash and definitely on the comfier side of things, though she somehow neglected to include socks in the equation—she’s faced with an unsettling dilemma. If she sits on the couch with Alex, it’s inevitable that they will slowly drift closer throughout the conversation, because that’s what _always_ happens when the sit on the same couch, but if she sits in a chair, it’ll be weird, because she never sits in a chair, she always sits on the same couch as Alex, but sitting on the same couch as Alex means she’ll be _sitting on the same couch as Alex_ and God, why are feelings so hard?

 _This doesn’t haven’t to be weird_ , she reminds herself, sucking in a centering breath. _It’s only weird if you make it weird, so just don’t make it weird._

She sits on the couch. The redhead accepts the proffered glass and opens the bottle of whiskey, pouring Lena’s glass before her own.

“Kara was gonna tell you herself,” she mutters. “She probably will. She doesn’t know I’m here.”

Lena quirks up an eyebrow. “Why not?”

“I’m s’posed to be happy for her,” Alex declares hollowly, brokenly. “And I am. I’m so, so happy that she gets to be with her family again.”

They meet eyes in an unspoken challenge. Brown eyes dare green, green eyes try to break brown.

Finally, understanding that her message is more important than winning the standoff, Lena speaks up.

“You’re her family, too, Alex.”

“What would you do if you found out your mother was still alive, somehow?”

Lena bristles, her brows setting in a hard line, her posture going rigid. “That is not the same, and you _know_ it. You and your parents gave Kara a wonderful life after she lost everything, you gave her another chance at family, and—it _isn’t_ the same.”

“S’not just about family,” Alex grumbles, and whether she consciously decides to ignore her friend’s outburst or genuinely doesn’t recognize it in her anguish is fully unknown. “She won’t have her powers on Argo. She’ll get to be… _normal_. No alien-of-the-week, no crime fighting, no living secret identities or double lives. She’ll just be Kara Zor-El, prodigal daughter of Krypton.”

She downs her entire glass in one pull.

“No flying. No x-ray vision. No super strength or super hearing or any of the other shit I had to help her learn how to control or suppress. She won’t have to control or suppress it anymore; it won’t exist.”

Lena scoffs skeptically. “She’ll be bored.”

“She’ll be _normal_ , Lena,” the agent emphasizes, leaning forward to pour herself more whiskey. “She’ll be normal without having to deny herself or her reality. She won’t be choosing not to use her powers, because she won’t have powers.”

“I give it less than a week,” the brunette chuckles dryly, finally sipping her whiskey only to realize it is damn good.

Alex flexes her jaw. “You know her well, I’ll never deny that, but…you don’t know her like I do.”

“Which is exactly why I’m in a prime position to assess that in less than a week, she will be bored out of her sanctimonious skull. You’re too close, Alex. You’re the one who taught her how to be human, so you feel…I don’t know. Guilty, maybe, or at least too sentimental to understand that she has grown to love being Supergirl more than she ever resented being superhuman.”

The redhead is still reluctant to acknowledge this. Tears well up in her eyes, but she battles them back, her hand twitching as if she wants another sip of whiskey then decides against it.

“I should be _happy_ for her,” she laments in a broken whisper. “I-I _am_ happy for her. I know I am, but it’s so hard to focus on that when I know—when I feel so—”

She cuts herself off with an abrupt shake of her head, apparently changing her mind once again about the whiskey, though she takes only a small sip, letting it linger on her tongue as if simply needing something else to do with her mouth other than talk about her feelings. As her chin tilts down, her eyes casting toward the ground, one of the tears she’s been fighting so valiantly leaks out, slipping down her cheek with an agonizing lack of alacrity.

Lena feels paralyzed, eviscerated. Frankly, she hasn’t even had time to process or even register the news about Kara, as all her bandwidth has been assigned to an instinctual need to take care of Alex, so much so that she forgets _how_ she normally takes care of Alex.

Acting on this instinct, the CEO sets her whiskey glass on the coffee table before reaching out, gingerly coaxing strong, calloused fingers to loosen their grip until she can take Alex’s glass and set it down next to her own. With nothing to hold, now, the older woman’s fingers clench into a fist, while her left hand rubs aggressively up and down her own jean-clad thigh. Lena crosses her right hand over, stilling that gesture, and as a consequence, their faces are more or less even, only a couple inches of air between them.

Their eyes meet, again, and the connection is so profound that Lena’s breath hitches in her throat. In an instant, she understands what’s going through Alex’s heart, understands all the conflicting, painful, oftentimes unwanted emotions and thoughts swimming around, surfacing randomly and unpredictably but nevertheless devastatingly.

Although it hasn’t quite hit her yet, what’s happening, and although she knows it won’t ever have anywhere near the effect it has on Alex, and although she’s not sure how she’ll even feel when it does hit her, Lena understands, somehow, and she relates, somehow, and she thinks, somehow, she might be able to help. She can’t fix it, can’t erase it, can’t make up for it, but perhaps she can help, at least incrementally. Can, at least incrementally, lessen Alex’s pain.

“You can be happy for her and still also feel all the things you’re feeling for yourself,” Lena states, delicate and deliberate.

Alex inhales sharply, flexing her fist under pale, dainty fingers. “Is this how you felt? When she came out and you two had to…?”

Their connection breaks as green eyes flit downward.

“Maybe,” she breathes sadly. “I felt…hollow. Terrified. And I—there were parts of me, parts I didn’t even want to acknowledge. Parts I was ashamed—am _still_ ashamed of. But those parts felt…betrayed. Angry. Not at her, because it wasn’t her fault. It isn’t her fault, and somehow that made it worse, because I still felt betrayed and angry, anyway, except without anyone to direct it at. So that…well, it sucked.”

A teary, sudden chuckle bursts from low in Alex’s throat. “Yeah. It really sucks.”

Reassured by the faint, albeit melancholy, smile which ghosts across the older woman’s lips, Lena leans back, picking her whiskey back up.

Curiously, the other glass remains in its place, at least for now, as Alex gazes vacantly at nothing.

“What am I— _who_ am I—?”

She cuts herself off, hunching forward, resting her elbows on her knees as she searches her malfunctioning brain for the right words.

“I don’t remember what it’s like to live my life without her.”

Lena sighs sympathetically, sinking back into the couch cushion. “I know they seem impossible to remember right now, but there have been no shortage of moments, even in the past decade or so, when you have lived your life as Alex Danvers, and not as Kara’s sister.”

“Oh, I remember them,” she snorts cynically. “That’s the problem. I’m a human fucking disaster at everything that isn’t being Kara’s sister.”

The brunette feels a surge of irrational defensiveness. “I beg to differ.”

“Everything good I have, everything I’ve ever done right, it’s all because she’s my sister.”

“I beg to differ,” Lena repeats, more emphatically this time. “You say that, you may even believe that, but it’s far from the truth.”

Alex cocks her head to the side, looking back at Lena, whose posture is paradoxically calm, settled back into the couch, her legs daintily crossed, one fingertip idly tracing the rim of her glass. The pair remains silent for a stretch, both apparently waiting for something.

“You’re not gonna do the thing?” the agent inquires. “Where you make your case, provide examples, try to convince me?”

Lena shrugs casually. “I’ll save it for when you’re in the right state of mind to actually benefit from it. I detest having to repeat myself.”

Despite herself, Alex laughs. Not merely a dry chuckle, but an actual _laugh_ —although it is still dripping with a certain nihilism, and before its echo has even subsided, she’s reaching for her whiskey. Once in her hand, she too sits back, propping one foot on the coffee table, tilting her head back to stare forlornly at the ceiling.

“I know she’s probably a mess,” she grumbles, scrubbing her free hand over her face, then running it through the long side of her hair before finally settling it on her raised knee. “All this time, Argo’s been there. Her mom’s been out there, and Kara just—in her warped, traumatized mind, she probably thinks she gave up looking for them, gave up hope. She’s probably a goddamn mess, and here I am, I barely even _asked_ her, barely helped—”

“It’ll be an adjustment,” Lena interrupts the impending self-flagellation. “Not getting to take care of her. Not knowing how she feels, or what she’s going through, at all times. Moreover, it’ll be an enormous adjustment to prioritize taking care of _yourself_ , if for no other reason than a lack of anyone else to take care of.”

“Maybe I’ll sign up to be a foster parent.”

“Excellent idea,” the businesswoman snarks. “That wouldn’t be rash or imprudent at all.”

“I could get a cat.”

“Or—and this is a wild, revolutionary thought, I know—you could take care of yourself for once.”

Alex rolls her head onto her shoulder to smirk at Lena. “Yeah, sure. How’s that working for you?”

 _Good Lord this woman is attractive_ , Lena finds herself thinking, only to berate herself shortly thereafter for allowing her defenses to fall, her concentration to break.

“Better than you’d think,” she manages to pipe, though it takes extra effort.

The older woman appears to consider her for a long stretch after that, and Lena squirms a bit, uncomfortable under the scrutiny combined with her own warring thoughts and impulses, and she finds herself silently praying that the poignant moment will end soon, lest she gets swept up in it all.

Finally, mercifully, Alex speaks.

Except the gods clearly hate Lena, because she says this:

“I’m really happy I have you, Lena.”

Even worse, she continues.

“Without you, I’d be—I don’t know. I wouldn’t have had anywhere to go tonight, anyone to talk to who understands. I’d probably have ended up drinking alone and punching out all my windows, or lashing out at Kara, or—I don’t know. Something self-destructive. Something that would’ve ended up making me feel a hundred times worse than I already felt. But instead, I have you. I have you, so I got to come over here and…I know this might sound selfish, or weird, but it all feels a little less impossible, you know? Knowing I have you, and that we can go through this together. It still feels awful, catastrophic, even, but—I don’t know. It doesn’t feel as lonely, I guess.”

 _Oh God. Oh no_.

Lena freezes, inside and out.

_Oh God. Oh no._

“I mean—I know it’s not the same. I know technically, we only got close because of Kara, but…it feels different now, you know? Like we have our own connection, and it can still exist when she—even _without_ her.”

Time, space, little boxes.

Lena takes a monstrous breath, digs her fingernails into her palm until the skin nearly breaks, tries to control herself, tries to clear her mind of anything other than time and space and little boxes.

“I’m babbling,” Alex mutters sheepishly, adjusting herself so her torso is more clearly angled toward Lena’s. “I just mean…thank you, and I’m happy to have you.”

Generally speaking, Lena Luthor thinks quite a bit about the absence of thought.

On occasion, certainly a far greater number of occasions than she’d prefer, the gifted scientist can act impulsively, or irrationally, or against her own interest. Her intellect does not inoculate her from experiencing high emotions, and once in a blue moon, she has been known to fall victim to these high emotions such that she succumbs to the impulsive, irrational, against-her-own-interest decisions which tend to be borne from said emotions. Nonetheless, even in those once-in-a-blue-moon occasions, her problem is not an absence or lack of thought, generally speaking. It’s not that she _isn’t_ thinking, it’s that she isn’t thinking enough, or appropriately.

Generally speaking, Lena’s never considered herself capable of the absence of thought. She’s tried meditation and yoga and mindfulness, and philosophically, she doesn’t discount the idea that some are capable of achieving the absence of thought—it’s merely that, generally speaking, she’s never considered herself one of those people. There isn’t a value judgment assigned to her assessment, even, because frankly, she’s grown to prefer alternative versions of mindfulness and meditation, ones that aim to focus the mind on a single thought rather than the absence of thought, ones that aim to clear the mind of distractions rather than clearing it entirely. These methods come more naturally to her than visualizing her thoughts as items on a conveyor belt or grains of sand in an hourglass or ripples in a pond. Anything that involved imagining her thoughts _drifting_ or _fading_ or _passing by_ —hell, anything that involved _visualizing her thoughts_ —inevitably ended in failure, followed by even higher stress levels triggered by how much she hates failing at things.

Anyway, Lena had long ago decided to do herself a favor and stop pushing this particular boulder up the hill. She’d long ago decided she simply wasn’t wired to ever achieve a complete absence of thought, so she might as well make it easier on herself and accept that.

Unfortunately, she might be forced to reconsider that part of her identity.

For the next few seconds, there isn’t a thought in her head.

She doesn’t think impulsively, or irrationally. She doesn’t acknowledge a feeling or an urge. She doesn’t make a decision. Even the little voice in the back of her head telling her she’s inherently stupid and bad and wrong is gone.

No, Lena Luthor would go on the record and swear that her mind is completely, utterly blank for at least a few, measurable seconds as she drops her glass, spilling the remains of her whiskey on the couch, and surges forward, grabbing Alex Danvers’s face in both her hands, craning her neck to press their lips together.

And for the first few seconds, of course, Alex is in shock, but after that…well, Lena would also go on the record and swear, _swear_ that there are at least a few, measurable seconds during which the redhead kisses back.

At least, until she jerks away like she’s just been electrocuted, dropping her own whiskey glass as she scrambles to stand and create distance between them.

“Oh _God_.”

Alex is touching her lips gingerly, as if they’re an open wound or a bomb that might go off. She looks at Lena unblinkingly, her eyes unfocused and swimming with _something_ , or maybe with everything, and her voice wavers like she’s on the verge of tears.

“I can’t do this, Lena. I can’t, I’m sorry.”

She doesn’t even sound like herself, and Lena clenches her jaw, wrapping her arms around herself protectively. Her posture, her primness, her poise fail her; she loses her composure, she falls in on herself, both internally and through her body language. Her brilliant green eyes brim with tears as she looks at anything other than the woman standing in front of her.

“Why not?”

Alex scoffs, runs her hand through the long side of her hair, and bites off, “You _know_ why not.”

Lena shudders at that.

“I can’t do this to her. I can’t—she _loves_ you. She’s loved you since the day she’s met you and—I can’t, Lena, you have to understand why I just _can’t_.”

But a pale throat bobs as Lena swallows heavily, standing up to contest the other woman. She assumes a stance of dominance, of steadfastness, and she makes a point to meet Alex’s eyes even if the gesture isn’t reciprocated.

“No, frankly. I don’t understand. Alex, you’ve given up _everything_ for Kara. You’ve devoted your whole life to Kara. Since the day Clark dropped her on your lawn and fucked off, you have seen it as your responsibility to protect her, to take care of her, to make her happy. Whether or not you resented or embraced that responsibility is neither here nor there. You’ve said it yourself, to me: you see protecting Kara as your life’s mission. And I get that. Really, I do. I understand completely why you have to think of Kara first, no matter what. I get it. But please. _Please_. All I’m asking is, just this once, think of what _you_ want. Separate from her. If my relationship with her had never existed, how would you feel right now? What would _you_ want?”

Something seems to break in the older woman.

“Lena,” Alex breathes, as heartfelt as the CEO has ever heard her sound. “Of course I want you. Of course I want to be with you. I’ve wanted to be with you for a long, long time. Since before Maggie and I ever got together, since before—”

Her chin quivers as she bites her tongue, shuffles her feet, continues to avoid eye contact.

“It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t. Whatever you say to me, it doesn’t matter. Kara is my life. She is the breath in my lungs, she is the blood in my veins, and I would never do _anything_ to risk hurting her. It doesn’t matter what I _want_ , Lena. It never has. And that’s the problem. That is why this is such a colossally bad idea—I shelved my feelings for you a long, long time ago because I could see what she felt for you. It doesn’t matter what I want. It matters what _she_ wants. I would never, ever put my happiness before Kara’s, and you know it.” She chuckles hollowly. “And yeah, you’re probably gonna call me a martyr for that. Maybe I am. Actually, not even maybe. I definitely am a martyr, in this case, but—fuck it, if you’re gonna martyr yourself, might as well do it for Supergirl, right?”

“She’s leaving,” Lena bites back, more acerbic and callous than intended, but too preoccupied to care. “She’s leaving you.”

To her credit, Alex doesn’t take the bait. She deflates, a little, but doesn’t lower herself. Instead, she grabs her boots from where they sit on the ground and starts shoving them onto her feet in a blatantly cumbersome manner endured simply to avoid having to sit back down and prolong things. As she does so, she provides her succinct, obstinate counterargument.

“Doesn’t give me a right to hurt her.”

“She doesn’t even want me like that!” Lena shouts, unfettered for reasons she herself can't, or won't, entirely fathom. “We’ve talked about it, we’ve agreed we should see other people, that we _need_ to see other people!”

“I don’t think by ‘other people,’ she meant her _fucking sister_ ,” Alex barks back, stomping her newly-booted foot on the ground, not even bothering to tie the laces before stuffing her other foot into its own boot. Once stood back up on both feet, she squares herself against the younger woman, softening her tone but not her position.

“This isn’t—she gave you permission to see other people. She never gave me permission to see you. And she never would, so…that’s that. This can’t happen.”

With that, she picks up her jacket and shrugs it unceremoniously on her shoulders, turning her back on the heartbroken, rejected woman as the latter falls back onto the couch, crushed.

As her hand curls around the doorknob, though, Alex hesitates. She doesn’t turn around, doesn’t face her, but she does pause.

“I am sorry, for what it’s worth,” she utters, dropping her forehead against the door with a quiet but resonating _thud_. “If I thought—I never would have been this… _invested_ if I thought there were any chance you reciprocated. Or _could_ reciprocate. I would have kept my distance, left you alone. It wasn’t fair to you, and I’m sorry. I should have known I’d cross lines, if I let us get this close. If I thought you’d felt the same, I’d never have let this happen. Or let it get this far.”

Then the door clicks open, and then it clicks closed, and Alex Danvers is gone.

Alex Danvers is gone and it’s just Lena, sitting alone on her freshly-whiskey-stained couch, trying to make sense of what just happened.

Quixotically, she finds herself fixating on those few, measurable seconds when her mind was empty.

Even more than she wishes she could take back what she did, she wishes she could once again experience those few, measurable seconds during which she didn’t have to be alone in her thoughts.

She thinks she’d do just about anything, right now, to not be alone with her thoughts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I know, I'm an asshole. The good news is I got my top surgery a couple weeks ago and T-Rex arms are good for typing stories about useless sapphics.


	13. i hate to wait for failure, i'd rather do it on my own

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angst²

Lena sucks in yet another deep breath, trying her best to ignore the countless knots her stomach has twisted into and conjure enough courage to knock on the door in front of her.

Luckily for her, the individual on the other side of the door is a super-hearing, x-ray visioning alien, so she doesn’t actually have to knock on the door in order for it to open.

“Lena?” Kara frowns. “What are you doing here?”

Then, the alien spots the motorcycle helmet perched under Lena’s arm.

“That’s Alex’s,” she gasps. “Alex told you. I _asked her_ —Lena, I’m so sorry, I wanted to tell you myself, I—”

Her teeth worry her bottom lip as she stares at the Kryptonian, unable to decide whether it’s good or bad that Kara doesn’t yet know what happened earlier in the evening.

“Can…can I come in?” she asks, sounding small and pitiful to her own ears. The blonde nods, stepping aside to allow her to enter, closing the door behind her.

“I really am sorry. You weren’t supposed to find out like this, I was going to—”

“I did something bad,” Lena gulps, pacing the dining room, refusing to make eye contact with the beautiful blue oceans that will cut to her core, make her feel impossibly worse than she already does. “I did—and it was _me,_ okay? It was entirely my fault, so be mad at me, okay, not Alex.”

Kara’s breath hitches, and she takes a step into Lena’s space, cutting off the route she’d been pacing. “What happened? Is Alex okay?”

“I kissed her,” Lena blurts. She realizes suddenly that at some point, Kara must have taken the helmet from her, so now both her pale, sweaty hands are free to twist and wring about in front of her navel, so she starts to do just that as she launches into an unbridled speech, as if compelled by forces beyond her control to simply vocalize all the thoughts inundating her brain.

“I kissed her, and it was _my fault_ , okay? I know I shouldn’t have done it. I know it was a bad idea, I _knew_ it was a bad idea, but I tried so hard not to do it. You have to believe me. I tried so hard, all the times she stood up for me and protected me and I didn’t kiss her then…and I have feelings, okay? And I know, I _know_ , we had an agreement, that we would talk to each other, but I’ve been so overwhelmed and _confused_ and in denial and then the Worldkillers—and tonight, it just happened. I just…did it. I didn’t plan on it, I didn’t even _mean_ to do it, not really, she was just sitting there, saying all these wonderful things to me, and she looked so… _powerful,_ and strong, and brave, and perfect, and _kissable_ , and she always looks that way, but tonight she came over and she—”

She cuts herself off with a frustrated groan. She’s already broken Alex’s trust even further by coming here, by admitting to Kara that Alex told her about Argo; she has no desire to completely betray the older woman’s confidence by divulging to Kara how distraught Alex was.

“Look,” Lena redirects. “I just wanted to say that I’m sorry, and I know Alex feels bad, but it’s my fault, so please don’t be mad at her.”

Pushing her glasses up her nose, Kara studies Lena.

“What did Alex do? After you kissed her?”

Fighting tears, the CEO once again bites her lip. “She pushed me away. Told me it couldn’t happen.”

“She told you it couldn’t happen, or she didn’t want it to happen?”

“Does it matter?”

Taking a deep breath, Kara steps over into the kitchen and pulls a barstool out. “Sit.”

Lena sputters for a moment, dumbfounded, as she’s ushered into the seat. “I—”

“Do you want something to drink? Alex has taken it upon herself to drink most the stuff I kept for you, but I hid that scotch you like from her just in case.”

“N-no.”

With an affectionate smirk, the alien replies, dryly, “I think you’re gonna want it once you hear what I have to say, so how bout I get it, just in case?”

Lena doesn’t have a chance to reply before a lowball glass and a bottle of scotch are in front of her on the counter. Kara leans over across the bar, placing her forearms across its clean surface to better match the height of Lena’s pale, perplexed face. She doesn’t say anything, at first, just maintains meaningful eye contact, the kind that cuts into the younger woman’s soul so deep she’s forced to look away.

“Are you mad at me?”

She’s met with a kind smile from soft, pink lips. Soft, pink lips that lately, she doesn’t find herself missing so much anymore.

“Not for the reasons you think I am,” Kara assures her, reaching her hand across the counter—not actually grabbing Lena’s, but making the offer clear, should the businesswoman choose to accept. “I wish you hadn’t stuffed your feelings down like you always do. I thought we were past that. I thought…I _wish_ that you had just come to me and been honest. Even if just to say you were confused, even if to say—I don’t know. I only wish you’d talked to me sooner, so I could have helped you get what you want.”

Lena does end up pouring herself a glass, her hand shaking. She doesn’t drink it at first, merely stares down into its amber depths. The scientist in her emerges, parsing down Kara’s explanation and its subtext until she draws a conclusion.

“You’ve known I felt this way for a while, haven’t you?”

“I suspected.”

“Why didn’t you…?”

“Time and space,” Kara shrugs sadly. “There’s been so much going on, I didn’t want to bombard you by bringing up something that isn’t even really my place to bring up.”

“Why didn’t you talk to Alex—?”

“Talk to Alex? About feelings?” the blonde interrupts with a scoff. “You and I both know you can’t force Alex to talk about feelings unless she’s darn well ready or you’re willing to lose an eye.”

A mirthless, obligatory chuckle escapes Lena’s throat as she picks up her drink and sips.

“Or willing to get your heart broken,” she adds woefully.

Kara considers her best friend for a moment, pulling her yet-to-be-accepted hand up from the counter to push her glasses up her nose.

“So…so this is really real?”

“Yeah,” Lena croaks. “God I wish it weren’t.”

“I wish you would have told me sooner,” she reiterates, her hands fidgeting a bit uneasily.

“Why bother?” the brunette snaps. “Why bother when I knew all along they would go totally unrequited?”

“Alex told you that?” Kara responds in kind, her tone sterner than usual, but somehow managing to preserve her empathy and tenderness. “She told you she doesn’t feel the same way?”

Lena just chews her lip, the absurd thought popping into her mind that she’s glad she never bothered to put lipstick on tonight, for it would be absolutely ruined by now.

“I know you, Lena. I know right now your brain is flooded with a million different reasons why Alex doesn’t and could never have feelings for you, and I know those are drowning out all the things she actually said, or at least actually _meant,_ because I love Alex, but we both know she’s a terrible liar in these situations. I’ve seen you two together recently and—she feels the same way, I know she does.”

The heartbroken woman refuses to make eye contact.

“It’s because of me, isn’t it?” Kara sighs.

Tears welling up, Lena nods. “I thought—you going to Argo, maybe she’d…”

“I still can’t believe she told you about that,” she grumbles, and a protective flare shoots up Lena’s spine. Before she can stop herself, she’s opening her big stupid mouth.

“She needed someone to talk to. She was a wreck about it.”

Kara’s crinkle slowly forms between her eyebrows. “She was?”

“You’re not going to summer camp, darling. You’re moving to a distant planet where you two won’t be able to communicate in any way.”

“It’s not permanent.”

“Good. But nonetheless, without a solid timeline, as far as Alex knows, you could be gone for months, for a year, until one day you’ll just pop back up unexpectedly, and you two will have no idea what’s happening in each other’s lives.”

The blonde ducks her head, and Lena sighs, knowing she pushed too far.

“I’m not accusing, Kara. Neither is Alex. We’re both over the moon for you, but it’s a tad bit more complicated than that. She came over and told me tonight because she was struggling, and she knew I’d understand and be able to help.”

Then, after pouring the rest of her scotch down her throat, she uncorks the bottle and mutters under her breath:

“Instead I threw myself at her, destroyed our friendship, and completely violated her trust coming here.”

Silently, Lena pours herself another glass. Kara watches intently, waiting until the bottle is recorked to speak.

“All I want is for you two to be happy,” she explains, as if they all live in an alternative universe where it’s that simple. “Both of you. Apart, together—I don’t care. You’re the two most important people in the universe to me, and I just want you both to be happy.”

Lena huffs skeptically. “I know you do, Kara. And I only want for you two to be happy, and Alex only wants for you and me to be happy, and that’s the _problem_ , because we’re all so concerned about making everyone else happy that we don’t think about ourselves half the time. And if we do—if we _do_ , we end up fucking everyone else over. Just look at you—going to Argo. Coming out, accepting yourself. You’re thinking about yourself for the first time in I don’t know how long. You’re actually trying to make yourself happy, for a change, and everyone around you is miserable about it. So why even try?”

Kara steels, her eyes flashing with an unexpected darkness as she stands up straight, crosses her arms sternly across her chest, and stares down the businesswoman with a fortitude usually reserved for Supergirl.

“You said you were proud of me.”

“I _am_ proud of you,” Lena asserts. “Always.”

“So you wish I just hadn’t bothered, then?” Kara breathes. “You wish I’d just—never come out? Kept pretending, kept—?”

“ _No_. Of course not, never, I didn’t say—”

“So what’s the difference? Why can’t you try with Alex?”

Lena bites her lip. “We had an agreement. I should have come to you first, should have told you how I felt, should have—”

“So that means you don’t deserve to be loved back?”

She bristles. “Who said anything about love?”

“Your face,” Kara smiles, free and beautiful and honest. “You look at her like you used to look at me, and she looks at you like she used to look at Maggie. Even more, honestly. She looks at you like she looks at really cool guns or—I don’t know. I don’t know, because I’ve never seen her look at anyone or anything the way she looks at you.”

Lena hangs her head.

“I’m not mad that you feel things for her, Lena,” she clarifies. “I’m only mad you’ve been keeping it to yourself, suffering in silence for so long.”

“I didn’t want to believe it.”

“I know.”

“She’s your _sister_.”

“I know.”

“You should hate me.”

“I could never.”

“I betrayed you.”

“ _You_ could never. Rao, Lena, you could never.”

Tears leak from emerald eyes, and Kara is rounding the island in a second to pull Lena in her arms.

“I’ll talk to Alex,” she declares steadfastly, stroking silky, raven hair. “I’ll talk to her and I’ll tell her—”

“ _Please_ , Kara. Please don’t bother.”

“No,” she replies firmly, almost angrily. Lena flinches a tad at the tone, and Kara softens, pecking a kiss to the top of her head before explaining, “Nobody gets to break your heart without answering to me about it. Not even Alex.”

The sad woman still puts up a fight, shaking her head against Kara’s chest.

“It’s not going to change anything. She doesn’t want me.”

To Lena’s surprise, her best friend does not respond with an immediate, outright denial. Instead, she pauses thoughtfully, continuing to soothe Lena’s hair.

“I don’t think that’s true. But if it is, then at least we’ll know for sure, and I’ll be able to help you. If it’s not, well…unfortunately, we both know I might be the only one who can talk any sense into my sister’s thick skull when it comes to this.”

A thought occurs to Lena suddenly, and she pulls away from the alien’s warm, comforting embrace.

“Alex isn’t here,” she mutters, ignoring Kara’s bemused expression. “She hasn’t called you at all?”

Slowly, the superhero seems to catch on. “No.”

“She said she’d be drinking alone, doing something self-destructive,” Lena recalls with a tinge of panic, standing up from her stool, crossing her arms over her chest. “Why hasn’t she called you?”

“Lena, it’s okay, she—”

“You need to go to her apartment and check on her. Now. I don’t like that she hasn’t called you.”

“She isn’t at her apartment,” Kara states calmly, patiently. “She’s at the bar. I can hear her.”

“So go there and check on her!”

“I don’t want to leave you alone,” she protests. “Besides, that’s not how this goes. If she wants me there, she’ll call me. If she _needs_ me there, the bartender will call me. It wouldn’t be the first time.”

Lena squeezes her eyes shut, turning herself away from Kara and sucking in a few deep breaths.

“I _kissed_ her,” she grumbles, barely audible but for her superhuman company. “Fucking moron, always ruining everything.”

“You haven’t ruined anything.”

“I’ve lost her, and I’m going to lose you, and I’ll be all alone again. Sad, pathetic, pariah Lena Luthor all over again. Can’t keep a person around to save her damn life. Always thinking attention is affection, always reading too much into basic human kindness, always ruining everything.”

“Lena,” Kara cuts her off, suddenly in front of her, placing an indestructible finger under a pale, quivering chin to ever-so-tenderly tilt it up. “Listen to me. That’s not what’s happening here. I love you. Alex loves you. Yes, it’s complicated and painful at times, and it isn’t always the kind of love you wish it were, but it doesn’t change the fact that we both love you to death, and it certainly doesn’t change the fact that we are _not_ the kind of people who give up on someone they love. _Ever_. We both love you, and that is not going away. You’ll give up on us long before either of us ever gives up on you.”

The smaller woman sniffs, looking up to absorb every ounce of sincerity radiating off of Kara.

“You promise?” she half-jokes, and they both allow small, sorrowful smiles to creep into their expressions.

“Cross my heart.”

Suddenly, Lena feels exhausted, almost as exhausted as she felt twenty-four hours ago when they successfully averted an apocalypse. Similar to then, she slumps against the woman of steel, burrowing her face in the crook of her neck, and lets the embrace convey and reinforce their need for each other.

After a while, though, she angles her head slightly out from Kara’s shoulder and murmurs, “Someday, if ever possible, I hope to meet your mother. I’d like to thank her.”

“For the Harun-El?”

“For _you_.”

Kara preens a little, tightening her grip.

“If you really don’t want me to interfere, I won’t,” she sighs, shifting a bit from foot to foot without faltering at all in her role as Lena’s support beam. “But I really hope you’ll let me talk to Alex, at least _try_ to help you. You were so good to me, so supportive, and I just want to help you be happy in any way I can. I think you and Alex would be really, really perfect together and I think I can help make it happen. At least, I want to try.”

If Lena’s being honest with herself, she came to Kara hoping this would happen. Sure, part of it was to confess, to absolve herself after her extended bout of poor communication and rather more sudden bout of poor decision-making, but there was also a tiny, optimistic part of her that wondered if Kara would maybe not be angry with her after all, would maybe try to help her, would maybe be able to convince Alex that her martyrdom, at least in this case, is misguided.

So it doesn’t really take all too long for the businesswoman to resign herself to this deal.

“You can talk to her, just don’t—”

She interrupts herself with a sharp breath.

“I want her to want it for herself. I don’t want her to say yes for your sake. I don’t want her to change her mind because she thinks you want her to—I want her to want me, and to let herself want me, by her own choice.”

“I understand.”

Lena nods wearily.

“Can I stay here tonight? I can’t—I’m so tired, Kara.”

“Of course. You can always stay here. I should probably wait until the morning when Alex is sober to talk to her, anyway.”

“No,” she protests weakly. “She’ll need you tonight, too. She’ll be sad.”

“I don’t want to leave you alone,” Kara frowns.

“I’d rather you leave me alone than leave Alex alone,” Lena scoffs. “We’re both reckless when emotional, but I am at least sober enough to offer my solemn word that I won’t leave this apartment and/or do anything stupid. I’m not confident Alex is cogent enough to do so.”

The superhero bites her lip, but shows signs of giving in. “You know how to reach me if you need me, though, right?”

“I’ll likely be dead asleep most the night, but yes. Between my cell phone, my signal watch, and my begrudging certainty that you’ll be keeping an ear on my heartbeat, I have no reservations that I’ll be able to reach you at any given moment.”

Kara smiles sympathetically. “Want me to at least stay with you until you fall asleep?”

A visible burden leaves Lena’s shoulders. “I thought you’d never ask.”

\----

Alex is…well, she’s drunk. She’s drunk enough that she’s lost count of how many shots she’s had. She’s drunk enough that when she tries to order another whiskey from Jackie, who _used_ _to be_ her favorite bartender at the alien bar, the woman insists she switch to beer.

Also, she’s drunk enough that when her formerly-favorite bartender suggests that she switch to beer, she blows a raspberry and eloquently retorts, “Your face should switch to beer.”

Nailed it.

She soon finds a bottle of her preferred beer in front of her, and she grumbles and glares at Jackie (who is now dead to her, incidentally), but she does drink it, because, well, it’s alcohol, and alcohol is her only friend right now. Alcohol will never move a different planet. Alcohol will never kiss her and fuck up all the hard work she’s put into not kissing alcohol. Alcohol will never cause her to suffer—until the morning, and if necessary, she can always solve that with more alcohol.

A quarter the way through her beer, she’s distracted from her thoughts by the barstool next to her scraping. She jerks up, looks through bleary eyes to see who has joined her.

“I wanted to drink _alone_ ,” she complains, turning to pick at the label on her bottle.

“Then perhaps you shouldn’t have come to a bar where everyone knows you and your friends so well,” J’onn rumbles, and she doesn’t look at him, but she can feel his eyes on her. “It’s been quite a while since I’ve seen you like this, Alex.”

“I don’t have to be perfect all the time.”

He doesn’t seem thrown or even the slightest bit bothered by her snapping, instead he shakes his head in agreement. “No, you don’t.”

Then he holds up a couple fingers to signal Alex’s new mortal enemy, and Jackie nods in acknowledgement as she begins to search for a bottle of Martian moonshine.

“She call you?” Alex slurs the sentence together into a single word, but the psychic seems to understand.

“She did,” he confirms. “Said you looked worse than the night after your break-up with Maggie, but you hadn’t called Kara yet.”

When Jackie comes over with J’onn’s drink, she also sets down a couple glasses of water, valiantly ignoring Alex’s death stare.

“Thanks, Jackie,” he smiles, and the seasoned bartender returns it briefly before walking away and granting the pair their privacy. He takes a few sips of his drink in silence, then asks: “So why haven’t you called Kara yet?”

“Read my mind, f’you wanna know so bad.”

“I told you, Alex, I try my best not to do that. I can’t always turn it off, but I want to respect your privacy.”

“Lena kissed me,” Alex blurts, before taking a quick swig of beer. “Lena. Kara’s Lena. So she’s gonna hate me when she finds out.”

“Your sister could never hate you. Especially not for something like this. You can’t control who you have feelings for, and she knows that.”

“Who said I have feelings?” the redhead barks. “Who said _Lena_ has feelings?”

“There’s no need to say it; I know.”

“Thought you said you don’t read private minds,” she grumbles inarticulately.

“I don’t have to read your mind to know you have feelings for her,” J’onn smirks. “I still have eyes, and ears, and intuition. I still know you better than most, Alex.”

“Doesn’t matter,” she snorts. “She doesn’t…she’s hurt. She’s heartbroken and she doesn’t know what she’s doing and because she’s sad about Kara and because I’m basically Kara ’cept I have human vulnerability and also I like sex.”

Her Space Dad visibly winces at that, but between the alcohol and the endless abyss of self-hatred she’s lost in, Alex doesn’t really register the reaction, or the concept that she might have said something inappropriate or ill-fitting of her company. So, J’onn soldiers on, recognizing his priorities.

“I can assure you, Lena sees you as far more than some…ersatz Kara. She sees you for who you are. She sees _you_ , Alex, for all your beauties and faults, and she cares for you all the same. She cares for you separate from how she cares for Kara.”

“S’impossible. I _am_ Kara. Kara _is_ me, she’s my whole life, there’s no—s’why I can’t date. Cuz I have to tell them I’m an FBI agent whose job has nothing to do with my human sister whose parents died in a fire. It was a fire, right? God, I can’t even remember the cover story, since I don’t even bother, I just avoid ever having to tell about my life. I can’t date because then people can’t fall in love with me, even, they only can just fall in love with the fake story I hafta be about how I’m a normal person with a normal family and a normal job and my sister isn’t Supergirl, she just eats a lot because she’s really into exercising, even though you’ll never see her exercise.”

“And yet,” J’onn rumbles, watching as Alex chases away her tears with an impressive swig of beer. “In the end, your relationship with Maggie ended for reasons completely unrelated to your sister.”

Gulping despite having already swallowed her drink, the human shrugs. “Maggie was the first thing I let myself have. And then I couldn’t even do it right.”

They imbibe in silence for a moment, not looking at each other, until Space Dad asks what, on the surface, is a very simple question, but in the layers underneath, contains multitudes.

“Does Lena want children?”

Alex downs the rest of her beer. She peels away at the label, her eyes trained on the action as she replies, “Yeah. She wants a daughter. She wants a daughter she can raise to be a powerhouse badass genius, and she wants to name her Maeve. After her mother.”

J’onn hums in acknowledgment. “Maeve is a beautiful name.”

“Yeah,” Alex breathes, before cracking her neck audibly. “So's Lena. Pretty name. And she’s gonna be a great mom.”

“You both would,” J’onn replies simply, taking a hearty pull from his bottle.

“Need to get a new helmet, first.”

To his credit, he tries to make sense of this for a few beats, the wheels visibly turning in his head (at least to anyone who isn’t as shitfaced as his current company). Inevitably, he comes up short of his own explanation and takes the leap.

“What?”

“Left my helmet at Lena’s,” she explains, as if failing to notice J’onn put any time or effort into connecting the dots himself. “Left my bike at Lena’s parking lot, so I can get that back, but my helmet’s at _Lena’s_ , so it’s hers now. Finders keepers.”

The Martian’s brows knit together incredulously. “You truly believe the best solution here is to never see or speak to Lena ever again?”

“Everything else is gonna be never the same, so why not Lena? Why not I just never see her again, and then it’s all fixed? Once Kara moves to Argo, me and Lena don’t ever have to ever see each other. We won’t kiss each other if we never see each other.”

Understandably, J’onn fixates on one particular piece of her drunken babbling.

“Once Kara moves to Argo?”

“Yeah. She’s gonna move there, back with her real family. The real one. She’ll get to walk and not see bones by accident and popcorn won’t be scary. S’the fucking life, J’onn. Her planet isn’t gone forever, her mom’s alive. Why would she ever wanna stay here with me?”

His shoulders sink.

“Alex—”

“Especially now that I go off and kiss Lena. I’m not s’posed to kiss Lena, but I did, so why would she wanna stay here with me when there’s a planet full of people who are just like her and don’t kiss her ex-girlfriend-slash-romantic-friend? I bet Kara’s mom would never kiss Lena.”

“Lena kissed _you_ ,” J’onn reminds her gently.

Alex responds by slamming her hand down on the bar top, loudly and aggressively, such that it draws the attention of half the nearby patronage. J’onn casts an apologetic glance up at the affected parties, who seem to redirect their attention rather quickly, either out of disinterest or because they recognize Alex and J’onn and know better than to get involved.

“Alex—”

“Doesn’t matter,” she interrupts, her voice only slightly higher than a growl. “I knew what I was doing. Knew what I wanted. Just cuz she did it first doesn’t matter. Coulda been me, just as easy. Probably woulda been, except Lena’s so much… _stronger_. And braver, and determined, and brilliant.”

Alex wraps her lips around the mouth of her empty beer bottle, tipping her head back until the bottle is all the way upside down, shaking it a few times as if attempting to summon nonexistent drops. With a disgruntled pout, she sets it a little too firmly back into the bar, missing the coaster and not appearing to care, or perhaps even notice, when it wobbles precariously before falling over onto its side. She stops it from rolling away, but only so she can play with it, spinning it slowly.

“She’s too good for me, anyway.”

J’onn reaches out, stilling Alex’s fidgeting hand under his much larger one, as well as the spinning bottle.

“Listen to me, Alex,” he demands, his tone compassionate but leaving absolutely no room for argument. “I’ve been alive for hundreds of years. I’ve been to dozens of planets. I’ve likely met at least a million people from thousands of different species—and I am certain, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that not a single one of them has ever been _too good_ for you.”

Alex shudders, ostensibly holding back tears.

“You’re not perfect. Nobody is. You’ve made mistakes, and God willing, you’ll continue to. You know what matters to you, and you give your whole heart to it, no matter what. Selflessly and steadfastly. You’re loyal, and loving, and even when it’s difficult, even when it means personal sacrifice, you step up for what matters.”

When the drunken woman releases a skeptical, self-deprecating scoff, the Martian doubles down.

“Since the day I took over Hank Henshaw’s form, I’ve kept an eye on you. I promised your father, and I don’t take promises lightly, especially not promises made to men to whom I owe a debt of life. Since you were sixteen years old, I kept tabs on you, and do you know what I noticed?”

Alex doesn’t answer, but to her credit, his question is rhetorical, and the subsequent pause is apparently for nothing more than emphasis.

“At least as long as I’ve known you, there’s always been one, defining, overarching theme tying your life together, coloring your every move. Even years before you knew I was paying attention. Even when you were a lost, scared kid and an insufferable, hormonal teenager at the same time. There was still always one thread tying everything together.”

He pauses again, and this time Alex steps up to the plate, but not to speak. She merely meets his stare, boldly and stubbornly, grinding her teeth together.

“You’ve always assigned more worth to Kara’s life than to your own,” he tells her, as if she doesn’t already know, as if that nagging thought doesn’t keep her tossing and turning on her worst nights. “Even when you resented her, even when you blamed her, even when you were more or less convinced she’d never actually use her powers and follow in her cousin’s footsteps. You still thought her life mattered more, had more value than yours, even if she never did a single thing with her powers other than cook the Thanksgiving turkey.”

She averts her eyes, knowing better than to argue with a psychic who’s spent the last decade looking out for her. Besides, she’s too drunk to think linearly or logically.

“So why’s she leaving, then?”

J’onn sighs sympathetically, squeezing Alex’s hand.

“I tried so hard. I know it took a while—after Dad left, I was bad for a while. I know that. I was bad to her. I didn’t take care of her, but it was—I got better. I got so much better. I gave her everything I had and how wasn’t it _enough_?”

“Alex—”

“If it wasn’t enough for Kara, how could it ever be enough for anyone else?!”

Her outburst once again draws the attention of a few fellow patrons, but this time, J’onn pays them no mind. He flags down Jackie, who gives him a sideways smile and points to her temple, telepathically projecting her assurance that he can settle the tab another time.

“Let me take you home, Agent Danvers.”

For what it’s worth, one way or the other, she doesn’t put up a fight; however, this may be because she more or less checks out from the world.

She doesn’t make a sound as they leave the bar and take the quick flight back to her apartment.

She doesn’t make a sound when they land on the balcony and see that there’s a lamp on in her living room, or when they enter the apartment and find Kara standing up off the couch, crossing the room toward them.

She doesn’t make a sound as she pushes away from J’onn and starts stumbling forward to meet her sister halfway.

When she collapses into Kara’s arms, however, a ragged, devastating sob rips from her throat, and she weeps wordlessly into the crook of the Kryptonian’s neck, completely overcome.

Kara spares J’onn a grateful glance over Alex’s shoulder, and he nods in acknowledgement before flying off into the night.

“C’mon, Alex,” she coos, rubbing her older sister’s back tenderly. “Let’s get into bed and sleep now. Everything else can wait, okay? Let’s just sleep now.”

She leads them to the bed and sits Alex down on the end. As soon as her face leaves the safety of Kara’s shoulder, Alex seems to instantly stop crying, instead sitting silently, impassively, her unfocused eyes gazing into nothingness as Kara tugs her boots off, replaces her tight jeans with loose sweatpants, and strips her of her leather jacket, leaving her in the thin tee-shirt underneath.

Alex is at least aware of her surroundings enough to understand when she’s finished being dressed for sleeping, as she climbs up the bed of her own accord (albeit rather unsteadily given her state) and flops down in a heap once her head reaches the pillow, not bothering to pull the covers over herself.

Kara takes care of that part, too, tucking her in before slipping in next to her. At first, she doesn’t push, just gently places her hand on top of Alex’s, but the drunken mess of a woman escalates the contact immediately, crawling into Kara’s arms with nothing short of desperation, once again wracked with unfettered sobs.

After about twenty minutes, Alex has cried herself to sleep.


End file.
